LIBRARY 

OF  TIIK. 

AT 

FRll\C'ETOi\,  IV.  J. 

UOiVAl'lOK  OF 

S  A  M  IJ  K  L  A  G  N  K  W  , 
r>    ^  1. 1  i- II 1 1,  i  n  K  I.  H  H  I  » .  i- A . 

Letter      J  3  >^  g 


BX  8731    .B871  1847 

Bush,   George,  1796-1859. 

Reply  to  Rev.  Dr.  Woods' 
"Lecture  on 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


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REPLY 


TO 


REV.  DR.  WOODS' 


LECTURES  ON  S WEDENBORGIANISM;" 

DELIVERED  IN  THE 

THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY,  ANDOVER,  MASS- 

BY  GEORGE  BUSH. 


NEW  YORK: 

PUBLISHED  BY  JOHN  ALLEN,  139  NASSAU  STREET. 

BOSTON  :  OTIS  CLAPP — LONDON:  WILLIAM  NEWBERY. 

1847. 


2  j  % 


Snowden  &  Prall,  PTinlers, 

Corner  of  Ann  *  Nassau  streets,  N.Y.  ^ 

—  .^SL  t  9g  _  ■'■ .'/ 1 . 

V  <  t>f^  <^f^  •  f  f       ^  * 


ERRATA. 


«  p.  1,  line  7,  for  "  spirit  to  the  apostolic  precept"  read  "  spirit  of  the  apostolic  pre- 
cept." 

»P.  33,  line  12,  for  "  Hengstenbery"  read  " Hengstenberg." 
t  P.  57,  line  1,  for  "  surprising  to  every  one"  read  "  surprising  to  any  one." 
•P.  W  line  1I»,  from  bottom,  for  Rev.  Badin  Powell"  read  "  Rev.  Baden  Powell." 
P.  lyS,  line  2j,  for  "  fallacy  and  intMiUy  of  his  claims"  read  "  fallacy  and  inanity  of 
his  claims." 

*P.  220,  line  20,  fox  "  all  evil  and  social  good"  read  "  all  civil  and  social  good." 


V 


HEPLY,  &c. 


LETTER  I. 

Dr.  Woods, 
Rev  and  Dear  Sir  : 

The  inspired  motto  of  your  recently  published  volume,  entitled  "  Lectures 
on  Swedenborgianism" — "  Prove  all  things ;  hold  fast  that  which  is  good" — offers 
to  me  the  same  warrant  for  examining  with  care  your  own  work  that  it 
does  to  you  for  sitting  in  judgment  on  the  doctrines  of  Swedenborg.  As  I 
do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  question  the  sincerity  and  uprightness  of  the  motives 
which  have  prompted  you  in  submitting  to  the  ordeal  of  reason  and  revelation 
the  merits  of  the  system  which  he  has  propounded  to  the  world,  so  I  would  fain 
hope  to  proceed  in  a  manner  equally  accordant  with  the  spirit  t«  the  apostolic 
precept  in  my  own  probation  of  the  True  and  my  steadfast  holding  to  the 
Good  of  your  production.  If  I  have  any  embarrassment  in  entering  yipon  the 
task  proposed,  it  arises  from  the  sentiments  of  warm  personal  regard  wliich 
your  uniform  courtesy  and  kindness  have  ever  compelled  me  to  cherish  toward^ 
you — sentiments  abundantly  witnessed  by  the  general  tenor  of  your  pamphlet 
— and  which  render  the  office  that  I  have  entered  y^on  like  something  under- 
taken by  a  son  in  opposition  to  a  father.  But  the  claims  of  Truth  we  both  re- 
gard as  paramount  to  those  of  all  earthly  relations,  and  you  would  justly  enter- 
tain but  a  poor  opinion  of  that  professed  earnestness  of  conviction  which  would 
forbear,  from  motives  of  complaisance,  to  assume  the  defence  of  principles  held 
to  be  of  the  utmost  importance,  and  which  were  yet  called  in  question  and  ar- 
raigned of  error,  y^on  this  work  of  vindication  I  feel  constrained  to  enter,  how- 
ever hampered  by  the  difficulty  of  uniting  fidelity  to  truth  with  the  deepest  res- 
pect for  the  person  of  my  opponent.  If  I  should  fail  in  either  particular,  it  will 
doubtless  be  owing  to  the  preponderance  of  the  opposite  class  of  sentiments  at 
the  time. 

The  kmd  allusions  you  are  pleased  to  make  to  myself  in  the  Preface  and  here 
and  there  throughout  the  volume,  together  with  the  frank  concession  that  you 
have  received  profit  firom  the  perusal  of  portions  of  Swedenborg's  writings,  goes 
far  to  disarm  the  severity  of  criticism,  and  this  effect  is  still  farther  enhanced  by 
the  general  vein  and  spirit  of  your  work.  I  can  freely  say  that  it  is  pervaded  by 
a  prevailuig  tone  of  candor.  It  betrays  no  attempt,  by  an  invidious  array  of 
offensive  points,  to  turn  the  system  into  ridicule,  and  make  it  the  butt  of  a  mere 
odium  theologicum.  The  object,  as  it  strikes  the  reader,  is  obviously  in  the  main 
simple  and  sincere — to  try  the  system  by  appropriate  tests,  and  to  ascertain  how 
far  it  agrees  with,  and  how  far  it  differs  from,  the  truth.   I  think,  indeed,  that  I 


4  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

shall  be  able  to  show  that  in  several  particulars  you  have  misapprehended,  and 
therefore  misrepresented,  the  real  character  of  his  teachings,  but  I  cheerfully  ac- 
cord to  your  pamphlet  a  ruling  honesty  and  fairness  of  purpose,  and  a  christian- 
like course  of  discussion,  which  demands,  and  I  doubt  not  will  receive,  the  thanks 
of  all  intelligent  New  Churchmen. 

The  work  stands,  m  this  respect,  in  marked  and  very  honorable  contrast  with 
a  large  portion  of  the  tracts,  reviews,  and  volumes  which  have  emanated 
from  Swedenborg's  opponents.  Their  general  aim  has  imiformly  been  to  ex- 
cite obloguy'  and  contempt,  by  holding  up  to  view  such  detached  items  and 
features  of  the  scheme  as  should  seem  to  outrage  all  rational  belief,  while  they 
studiously  avoid  the  consideration  of  the  fundamental  prmciples  and  laws  of 
being  on  which  the  whole  is  affirmed  to  rest.  It  seems  never  to  have  occurred 
to  these  writers,  that  all  the  formidable  objections,  arising  from  the  details  of  the 
system,  had  to  be  encountered,  in  the  outset  of  their  inquiries,  by  every  present 
espouser  of  it,  and  that  they  were  no  less  sensible  than  others  to  their  utmost 
force.  But  these  objections  were  countervailed,  in  their  minds,  by  the  strength  of 
the  evidence  which  arrayed  itself  in  support  of  Swedenborg's  claims,  and  it 
seems  to  them  no  more  thcin  equitable,  that  their  acceptance  of  these  doctrines 
shall  be  judged  of  by  the  reasons  which  have  prompted  it.  These  reasonshave  been 
with  them  all  in  all,  and  why  is  not  the  demand  fair,  that  their  adequacy  or  in- 
adequacy to  sustain  the  credence  yielded  shall  be  pronoiuiced  jij^on  .'  Yet  this 
is  precisely  the  demand  which  our  opponents  have  hitherto  refused  to  comply 
"with.  They  have  been  willing  to  deal  with  the  conclusions,  but  not  with  the 
premises,  l^i^tillyour  work  appeared,  I  recollect  not  a  single  instance,  with  the 
exception  perhaps  of  Priestley,  where  there  was  even  an  approximation  to  the 
show  of  controversial  justice  in  the  mode  of  conducting  the  argument  in  regard  to 
Swedenborg's  title  to  be  received  as  a  messenger  from  heaven.  Your  own 
work  I  do  regard  as  an  approximation  to  this  point,  though  falling  short  of  it  hi 
a  variety  of  particulars,  which  I  propose  to  designate  in  the  sequel.  The  same 
remark,  though  in  a  still  more  qualified  sense,  I  feel  bound  to  make  in  respect  to 
Dr.  Pond's  "  Swedenborgianism  Reviewed."  Neither  ui  your  work  nor  m  his  do 
I  recognize  a  disposition  to  do  mjustice  to  Swedenborg  by  a  gross  caricaturmg 
of  his  doctrines,  or  by  a  substitution  of  coarse  abuse  for  grave  reasoning.  They 
both  bear  evidence  of  havmg  been  penned  by  men,  who  were  seriously  persuad- 
ed that  the  system  in  question  involved  errors  of  a  momentous  character,  and 
such  as  called  for  argumentative  refutation.  I  do  not  of  course  admit  that 
either  of  these  works  has  succeeded  in  establishing  the  positions  ^j^on  which  it 
has  labored.  I  do  not  regard  them  as  having  solidly  convicted  the  system  of 
a  single  error  on  the  score  of  philosophy  or  theology,  or  as  having  made  good  a 
single  objection  urged  against  it ;  but  I  nevertheless  concede  to  both  a  laudable 
freedom  from  the  traits,  which  have  almost  mvariably  characterised  every  for- 
mer attempt  to  bring  discredit  and  reproach  )f?]^on  the  doctrines  embraced  by 
the  New  Jerusalem  Church.  These  volumes  may  therefore  be  regarded  as  in- 
dicative of  the  dawn  of  a  better  day  in  the  conduct  of  the  controversy  bearing 
yipon  the  doctrines  and  developments  announced  to  the  world  by  the  Swedish 
savan.  The  bare  fact  that  individuals  hke  yourself  and  Dr.  Pond — occupying 
high  posts  in  the  theological  world, — seated,  as  it  were,  in  tlie  very  Mizpe/is,  or 
jdaces  o/espioi,  in  the  territory  of  dogmatic  research — should  have  seen  fit,  almost 


/. 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


5 


simultaneously,  to  enter  into  the  debate,  will  be  of  itself  sufficient  henceforward 

to  redeem  the  system  opposed  from  the  charge  of  absurdity  and  extravagance 
which  has  hitherto  rested  ylp'on  it.  For  who  can  suppose  that  two  such  "  grave 
and  reverend  seniors"  should  have  girded  themselves  to  the  conflict  unless  they 
deemed  the  enemy  worthy  their  prowess  Would  they  have  appeared  on  the 
arena  if  they  had  regarded  the  doctrines  advanced  as  a  mere  mass  of  idle  visions 
and  dreams,  sustained  by  no  show  of  solid  reasons,  and  calculated  to  work  no 
conviction  except  ia  minds  which  had  lost  their  balance  and  become  the  easy 
dupes  of  wild  delusions The  question  will  very  naturally  occur,  whether  it 
could  have  been  anticipated  of  either  of  these  gentlemen,  that  they  should,  for 
instance,  have  assumed  the  attitude  of  public  opponents  of  the  vagaries  of  Mor- 
monism Would  they  not  have  deemed  them  beneath  the  notice  of  their  pens  ? 
Would  they  have  been  willing  to  confer  yj^on  them  even  the  eclat  of  their  dis- 
sent Whatever  then  may  be  the  estimate  of  the  christian  community  at  large 
of  the  character  of  these  doctrines,  it  is  clear  that  neither  yourself  nor  your  theo- 
logical compeer  regard  them  as  at  all  if  on  a  par  with  the  ordinary  class  of  re- 
ligious hallucinations. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Your  calm  and  logical  course  of  procedure— your  candid 
consideration  of  the  arguments  adduced — your  careful  abstinence  from  any  de- 
signed invidious  exhibition  of  the  tenets  of  Swedeuborg— your  studious  suppres- 
sion of  all  mcendiary  or  disparaging  epithets — your  evident  aim  to  do  no  injus- 
tice to  the  views  remarked  ]|(^on— in  all  this  your  example  (and  I  speak  of  both) 
goes  to  administer  an  emphatic  rebuke  to  all  other  modes  of  carrying  on  the 
warfare  against  the  creed  of  the  New  Church.  You  have  established  a  prece- 
dent which  I  trust  will  be  followed.  Yoa  have  virtually  said,  "  These  are  men 
to  be  argued  with,  and  not  to  be  put  down  by  vilification  and  ridicule.  They 
justly  claim  to  be  convinced,  and  not  merely  denounced  having  yielded  their  faith 
to  crazy  conceits  and  blasphemous  outrages  ^jfon  the  Holy  Oracles.  They  pro- 
fess to  assign  adequate  and  rational  grounds  for  their  belief,  and  they  are  to  be 
dealt  with  accordingly."  For  the  altered  complexion  which  your  influence  is 
thus  likely  to  give  to  all  future  controversy  on  this  score,  I  am  for  one  profoitndly 
grateful.  Its  effect,  I  am  quite  sure,  will  not  be  lost  ^^on  us  in  the  maintenance 
of  ottr  positions. 

In  approaching  the  consideration  of  your  work,  I  find  myself  draAvn  in  the 
outset  to  several  remarks  occurring  in  the  Preface,  containing  what  you  would 
have  to  be  regarded  as  a  solution  of  the  fact,  that  matter  of  real  excellence  occa- 
sionally stands  out  in  Swedenborg's  writings  in  marked  contrast  with  the  staple 
of  the  dreams.  After  alluding  in  courteous  terms  to  my  private  communications, 
you  say  : — 

"I  can  assure  my  brother,  that  I  have  attended  to  the  works  of  his  favorite 
author  with  a  sincere  desire  to  profit.  And  I  think  that  I  have  profited.  Some 
important  truths,  which  I  have  long  believed,  particularly  in  regard  to  the  iu' 
ward  motives  of  human  action,  the  disclosure  which  Avill  be  made  of  the  secrets 
of  the  heart  in  another  world,  and  the  correspondence  of  futitre  retributions  with 
the  predominant  characters  of  men,  have,  by  these  writings,  been  impressed  on 
my  thoughts  with  new  vividness  and  force.  In  some  cases  his  visionary  repre- 
sentations of  important  practical  truths  are  very  striking  and  happy.  In  his 
work  on  Providence  he  advances  many  just  and  scriptural  views.  This  and 
some  other  of  his  works  seem  to  contain  his  own  speculations,  and  I  think  must 
have  been  composed  mostly  during  the  intervals,  (as  there  evidently  were  in- 
tervals), between  his  visionary  states,  when  he  thought  and  wrote  from  his  own 


6 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


mind,  and  not  from  the  dictation  or  influx  of  angels,  whether  good  or  bad.  In 
the  works  referred  to,  we  do  not  find  him  saying  continually,  that  the  angels  told 
him  so  and  so.  And  I  cannot  but  deem  it  a  special  advantage  to  him,  that  he 
was  thus  occasionally  left  to  think  in  his  own  way,  and  to  draw  his  theories 
and  arguments  from  his  own  resources." 

That  the  disclosures  to  which  you  refer  cannot  well  be  read  without  yielding 
to  every  candid  mind  the  "  profit"  which  you  acknowledge  yourself  to  have  de- 
rived from  them,  I  can  easily  understand.  But  how  it  can  be  conceived  possible 
that  such  a  searching  analysis  of  human  motives — such  a  keen  anatomising  of 
the  heart — such  a  terrible  cautery  of  conscience — such  an  impressive  display  of 
retribution — could  have  proceeded  from  any  one  who  was  not  an  actual  eye  and 
ear  witness  of  the  realities  of  the  world  of  inner  unveiling,  I  cannot  understand. 
With  me  they  receive  all  their  force  from  the  evidence  afforded  that  he  is,  in  these 
statements,  dispensing  the  results  of  experience('znd  not  of  mere  speculation, 
whether  sane  or  insane.  If  these  alleged  disclosures  really  possess  the  moral 
efficacy  which  you  attribute  to  them,  it  must  be  from  their  accordance  with 
what  you  are  otherwise  assured  to  be  the  substantial  truth,  and  it  would  certainly 
seem  reasonable,  that  the  acknowledged  intrinsic  truth  involved  in  his  statements 
should  abate  somewhat  of  the  presumption  of  their  being  the  mere  product  of 
dreaming  phantasy.  Something,  at  any  rate,  seems  due  to  the  consideration, 
that  a  mere  dreamer  would  be  quite  as  apt  to  dream  falsity  as  truth. 

But  from  this  dilemma  you  would  obviously  extricate  your  concession  by  the 
assumption  that  follows — and  assumption  it  undoubtedly  is,  for  there  is  nothing 
in  the  recorded  biography  of  Swedenborg  to  warrant  it.  We  look  in  vain  for 
the  least  hint  or  intimation  of  such  "  lucid  inter\'als"  as  you  suppose  "  between 
his  visionary  states  ;"  durmg  which  he  gave  out  his  own  speculations  as  distin- 
guished from  his  extatic  disclosures.  He  claims  for  all  the  writings  published 
by  himself  subsequent  to  his  illumination  precisely  the  same  degree  of  authority,  . 
and  it  is  utterly  at  variance  with  everything  Imown  of  the  integrity  of  his  charac- 
ter to  suppose,  that  he  would  have  given  us  no  criterion  by  which  to  discrim- 
inate between  what  "  he  thought  and  wrote  from  his  own  mind"  and  what  he 
received  "  from  the  dictation  or  influx  of  angels."  In  a  letter  to  a  friend  pub- 
lished by  Mr.  Hartley,  and  givjng  the  leading  particulars  of  his  life,  he  says, 
"Whatever  of  worldly  power  and  advantage  may  appear  to  be  in  the  things 
above-mentioned,  I  hold  them  as  comparatively  matters  of  little  moment,  be- 
cause, what  is  far  better,  I  have  been  called  to  a  holy  office  by  the  Lord  himself, 
who  most  graciously  manifested  Himself  to  me  His  servant,  in  the  year  1743, 
and  then  opened  my  sight  into  the  spiritual  world  and  endowed  me  with  the 
gift  of  conversing  with  spirits  and  angels,  which  has  been  continued  to  me  to  this  day. 
From  that  time  I  began  to  print  and  publish  various  arcana,  that  have  either  been 
seen  by  me,  or  revealed  to  me ;  as  concerning  heaven  and  hell ;  the  state  of  men 
after  death ;  the  true  worship  of  God ;  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word ;  and 
many  other  most  important  matters  tending  to  salvation  and  true  wisdom ;  and 
the  only  motive  which  has  induced  me,  at  different  times,  to  leave  my  home  and 
visit  foreign  countries,  was  the  desire  of  being  useful,  and  of  communicating  the 
arcana  entrusted  to  me." 

This  letter  was  written  in  1769,  twenty-six  years  after  the  date  of  his  illumi- 
nation, and  three  years  before  his  death.  During  this  whole  period  he  declares 
himself  to  have  enjoyed  his  distuiguished  gift  of  spiritual  sight,  and  during  this 


'1       '  p 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


7 


period  it  was  that  those  very  works  were  written,  of  which  you  speak  with 
commendation  and  by  portions  of  which  yon  declare  yourself  to  have  been 
"profited."  In  this  then  you  were  reaping  the  fruits  of  that  very  illumination 
from  which  you  would  fain  withhold  the  due  credit.  He  elsewhere  very 
frequently  alludes  to  the  continued  enjoyment  of  his  supernatural  state  through  a 
long  course  of  years,  and  never  once  hints  at  the  interruption  or  suspension  of 
it  for  any  interval,  whether  long  or  short.  You  remark  indeed, — and  this  seems 
to  be  the  source  of  your  impression — that  "in  the  works  referred  to,  we  do  not 
find  him  saying  continually,  that  the  angels  told  him  so  and  so."  Very  true; 
but  what  does  he  himself  declare  on  this  head.'  "With  the  angels  I  have 
conversed  these  twenty-two  years  past,  and  daily  continue  so  to  do ;  with  them 
tlie  Lord  has  given  me  association ;  though  there  was  no  occasion  to  mention  all  this 
in  my  writings.  Who  would  have  believed,  and  who  would  not  have  said, 
show  some  token,  that  I  may  believe  and  this  every  one  would  have  said  who 
did  not  see  the  like." 

Permit  me  then  to  ask  i^jion  what  grounds  you  feel  authorized  to  assert  the 
fact  of  such  a  distinction  as  you  have  pointed  at  between  the  different  portions 
of  Swedenborg's  writings,  as  if  one  were  the  production  of  his  own  mind,  in 
its  normal  condition,  and  another  the  result  of  alleged  angelic  dictation  ?  It 
certainly  rests  \^)(Son  no  admission  of  his  own,  nor  does  it  receive  countenance 
from  any  other  authentic  source,  and  the  opinion  would  seem  to  have  been 
adopted  solely  with  a  view  to  meet  an  exigency.  A  problem  was  to  be 
solved  respecting  what  Swedenborg  says  of  controversial  debates  among  the 
spirits  of  the  other  world.  "  It  is  remarkable,  that  all  his  works,  whether 
prompted  by  his  own  mind  (.'),  or  by  the  spirits  of  dead  men,  contain  a  great 
abundance  of  controversial  matter.  It  is,  however,  obvious  that,  in  this 
respect,  his  account  of  the  heavenly  world,  though  it  indirectly  resulted  from 
his  own  habit  of  thinking  (.'),  is  not  according  to  the  word  of  God.  For  who 
would  ever  learn  from  the  Scriptures,  that  there  is  any  occasion  for  controversy, 
or  any  want  of  union,  in  heaven "  To  say  nothing  of  the  mistake  of  making 
heaven,  instead  of  the  world  of  spirits,  the  scene  of  these  debates  among  spirits, 
here  is  a  foregone  conclusion,  with  which  the  admission  of  Swedenborg's  truth  on 
this  head  is  wholly  inconsistent.  His  state  therefore  at  the  time  was  not  one  of 
truthfulness,  but  a  state  of  phantasy.  "When  a  man  who  has  been  accustomed 
to  controversy,  has  a  dream  or  vision  of  the  world  of  spirits,  it  is  no  wonder  if 
he  finds  things  there,  much  as  they  are  here."  You  are  of  course  at  liberty,  if 
you  find  no  better  solution,  to  explain  Swedenborg's  statements  of  the  facts  of 
the  other  life  on  the  hypothesis,  that  the  whole  of  them  are  the  offspring  of  dreams 
and  delusions,  both  the  true  and  the  false,  but  I  must  certainly  protest  against 
a  gratuitous  assumption  in  the  outset,  with  a  view  to  separate  these  different 
elements,  and  then  reasoning  on  this  assumption  so  as  to  save  the  credit  of  one 
part  of  his  statements  at  the  expense  of  another.  The  evidence  is  decisive  that 
all  the  utterances  emanated  from  precisely  the  same  psychological  state,  and  for 
the  same  reasons  that  we  ascribe  truth  to  one  part  of  them,  we  ascribe  it  to  the 
others  also.  The  whole  matter  reverts  therefore  to  the  question,  first,  of  the 
fact  of  such  a  state  as  Swedenborg  claims  for  himself,  and,  secondly  of  the 
necessary  truthfulness  of  that  state  arising  from  its  supernatural  character.  In 
other  words,  the  question  has  to  be  determined,  whether  such  a  state  as  he 


8 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


affirms  his  to  have  been  could  have  occurred,  unless  he  were  brought  into  it 
by  the  direct  divine  agency,  and  whether,  concedmg  tliis,  he  would  at  the  same 
time  have  been  allowed  in  that  state  to  give  forth  to  the  world  a  mixed  medley 
of  truth  and  falsehood.  This  you  will  perceive  to  be  a  question  of  very  grave 
import,  and  one  ^j^on  which  I  trust  some  light  will  be  thrown  as  we  proceed. 
For  the  present  I  remain, 

Dear  Sir, 

Very  respectfully  Yom-s, 

GEO.  BUSH. 

LETTER  II. 

Rev.  and  Dear  Sir  : 

After  intimating  in  your  preface  that  you  shall  peremptorily  decline  any  reply 
to  whatever  animadversions  may  be  made  upon  your  work,  you  hand  over  the 
task  of  continuing  the  controversy,  if  it  shall  be  kept  up,  in  the  following  words : 

"  I  must  therefore  commit  the  subject  to  the  care  of  brethren  who  are  younger 
than  I,  and  to  the  disposal  of  an  all-wise  Providence ;  and  \vill  oiily  whisper  to 
zealous  advocates  of  Swedenborgianism,  that  their  expectations  of  success 
,^will  be  very  likely  to  be  disappointed.  The  system  has  indeed  some  powerful 
attractions  to  a  certain  class  of  men.  But  its  errors  and  corruptions  are  so 
palpable  and  gross,  as  to  divest  it  entirely  of  the  authority  which  it  claims,  and 
to  prevent  its  prevalence  among  the  great  body  of  sober-minded  Christians." — 
p.  4. 

The  "  whisper"  here. so  kindly  administered  to  the  "  zealous  advocates  of  Swe- 
denborgianism" might  as  well  have  been  a  voice  uttered  in  the  tones  of  a  trumpet, 
for  any  special  or  oracular  significancy  which  they  will  be  disposed  to  attach 
to  it.  The  probability  of  their  success  in  the  propagation  of  their  peculiar 
views  will  depend,  they  believe,  entirely  upon  their  accordance  with  the 
abstract  truth,  as  embodied  in  the  Divine  Word,  and  echoed  in  the  universal 
reason  of  man.  Their  hopes  on  this  score  are  measured  entirely  by  their  confi- 
dence in  the  accomplishment  of  the  Divine  purposes,  in  regard  to  the  final 
prevalence  of  the  genuine  doctrines  of  Christianity  over  the  earth.  Cheering 
anticipations  on  this  head  do  undoubtedly  hold  the  ascendancy  in  their  minds, 
yet  they  are  moderated  by  so  deep  a  consciousness  of  the  many  adverse 
influences  with  which  the  truth  has  to  contend,  that  they  are  probably  as  fai' 
as  any  class  of  men  can  well  be  from  cherishing  expectations,  tliat  will  be  likely 
to  receive  a  shock  from  disappointment.  The  very  genius  of  the  system  forbids 
the  prospect,  in  the  main,  of  any  other  than  a  very  gradual  triumph  over  the 
obstacles  which  oppose  its  progress,  and  its  espousers  have  only  to  revert  to 
their  own  individual  experience — to  the  long  struggle — the  alternations  of  doubt 
and  assurance — the  antagonist  pleadings  of  self-interest,  even  when  conviction 
had  won  the  day — to  be  aware  of  the  infinite  lets  and  hindrances  with  which  a 
code  of  life  and  truth  so  sublimated,  so  intellectual,  so  spiritual,  so  heavenly, 
will  inevitably  meet.  Nevertheless,  as  I  remarked,  the  confidence  of  hope  .pre- 
dominates, because  they  consider  the  bestowment  of  the  revelations  a  virtual 
pledge  for  their  ultimate  wide  reception,  and  they  consequently  regard  all  such 
whimpered  vaticinations  as  the  above  as  little  else  than  a  mere  gratuitous  begging 
the  question  as  to  the  intrinsic  verity  of  the  principles  and  doctrines  involved, 
if  the  system  tie  of  man,  it  cannot  eventually  succeed  ;  if  it  lie  of  God,  it  cannot 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  9 

but  succeed.  The  true  issue  therefore  is  the  true  character  of  the  system,  and  by 
the  verdict  of  the  Divine  Providence  on  this  head  I  presume  you  and  I  are  both 
willing  to  abide,  and  we  can  mutually  agree  to  hold  our  prophecies  in  abeyance 
till  that  is  pronounced. 

As  I  have  already  made  my  grateful  acknowledgment  for  various  personal 
courtesies  interspersed  through  your  volume,  it  will  be  unnecessary  to  repeat 
them  in  every  instance  in  which  I  feel  constrained  to  advert  to  such  references. 
Nor  do  I  advert  to  them  with  a  view  to  make  the  personality  prominent.  It  is 
solely  with  the  design  of  remarking  upon  something  of  more  importance,  as  for 
mstance  in  the  passage  which  follows ; — 

"  It  would  have  been  gratifying  to  me  and  to  many  others,  if  Professor  Bush  had 
come  forward  with  the  express  design  to  carry  into  effect  the  above  mentioned 
precept  of  the  Apostle  in  reference  to  Swedenborg's  writings,  and  to  distinguish 
between  the  true  and  the  false,  the  good  and  the  bad,  the  Scriptural  and  the  anti- 
scriptural.  As  I  considered  him  to  be  sound  in  the  faith,  and  settled  in  the  in- 
telligent belief  of  the  great  doctrines  of  the  gospel  as  commonly  understood  by 
evangelical  ministers  and  churches  ;  1  should  have  thought  him  well  qualified 
for  such  an  undertaking.  But  the  work  he  has  entered  upon  is  of  a  different 
kind.  His  object  is  not  to  discriminate  between  the  true  and  the  false  in  his 
favorite  author,  but  to  recommend  his  writings  without  distinction,  and  to  de- 
fend the  system  contained  in  them,  with  all  its  peculiarities,  against  all  ex- 
ceptions. He  has  given  no  intimation  that  he  regards  Swedenborg  as  chargea- 
ble with  any  mistake,  or  liable  to  any.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  implied  in  what  he 
has  published,  that  he  has  full  confidence  in  the  claims  of  that  writer  to  a  divine 
commission,  and  in  the  divine  authority  of  all  his  teachings.  In  this  matter,  I 
find  myself  in  a  very  diff'erent  state  of  mind  from  my  brother." — p.  10. 

The  precept  of  the  Apostle  to  which  you  refer,  as  one  that  you  and  others 
would  have  been  gratified  to  see  me  come  forward  with  the  design  of  carrying 
into  effect,  is  that  which  stands  at  the  head  of  your  Lectures — "  Prove  all  things ; 
hold  fast  that  which  is  good,"  and  the  implication  is,  that  I  could  not  consist- 
ently act  upon  the  spirit  of  this  precept  in  reference  to  Swedenborg's  writings 
without  "  distinguishing  between  the  true  and  the  false,  the  good  and  the  bad, 
the  scriptural  and  the  anti-scriptural,"  that  might  be  found  in  them.  In  reply  to 
this  allow  me  to  say,  that  as  the  whole  body  of  these  writings  came  before  me 
with  precisely  the  same  claim  on  the  score  of  truth  and  authority,  I  felt  myself 
bound  in  justice  to  examine  the  foundations  of  that  claim  as  to  the  entire  ground 
covered  by  it,  and  not  as  to  its  separate  departments.  The  system  announced,  I 
perceived  to  rest  upon  certain  great  principles,  mainly  psychological,  and  that 
by  the  truth  or  falsity  of  these  principles,  the  whole  superstructure  built  upon 
them  must  stand  or  fall.  Swedenborg  does  not  j^resent  himself  to  the  world  as 
a  man  giving  out  his  own  peculiar  views — the  product  of  his  own  unaided  spec- 
ulations— like  an  ordinary  theologian,  some  of  which  might  be  expected  to  be 
sound  and  some  unsound,  but  he  comes  professedly  clothed  with  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent character — that  of  a  chosea  and  commissioned  messenger  from  God,  em- 
powered, by  special  divine  illumination,  to  lay  open  the  mysteries  of  the  spirit- 
ual world,  and  to  unfold  the  genuine  doctrines  of  the  inspired  Word.  Whether 
true  or  false,  this  is  his  claim,  and  this  claim,  in  its  entire  purport,  I  felt  con- 
strained to  weigh.  It  did  not  at  all  occur  to  me  that  I  was  to  begin,  from  the 
very  outset,  with  the  tacit  assumption,  that  a  part  of  his  averments  were  probably 
true,  and  a  part  of  them  certainly  false,  and  then  to  proceed,  by  a  winnowing 
process,  to  separate  the  wheat  from  the  chaff.  I  was  rather  prompted  to  act  upon 


10 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


the  principle  distinctly  recognized  by  yourself,  (p.  20),  "  If  his  claims  are  founded 
in  truth,  all  his  revelations  are,  in  the  highest  sense,  from  God." 

It  was  very  obvious,  that  considering  his  claim  of  truth  throughout,  any  pal- 
pable errors  would  of  course  practically  nullify  all  the  positive  truths  with  which 
they  might  be  mixed  up.  Who  would  regard  the  truth  when  corrupted  by  such 
base  alloys  of  falsity  You  have  yourself  distinctly  adverted  to  this  perverse 
tendency  in  the  human  mind  to  undervalue  truth  when  found  in  close  connection 
with  error.  "  Truth,"  you  say,  "  is  indeed  truth,  wherever  it  is  found.  But  mixing 
error  with  it  is  likely  to  prevent  its  good  influence  on  the  mind,  and  in  many 
ways  to  lead  on  to  pernicious  consequences."  You  are  right  therefore  in  saying 
that  my  object  is  not  any  such  discrimination  as  you  spake  of,  but  to  recom- 
mend Swedenborg's  writings  without  distinction,  for  I  know  not  where  to  draw 
the  line  that  shall  separate  between  the  true  and  the  false.  If  you  can  enlighten 
me  on  this  head  by  clearly  defining  the  principles  on  which  such  a  discrimina- 
tion is  to  be  made,  I  will  readily  confess  to  the  defectiveness  of  my  procedure. 

But  permit  me  to  say  that  it  will  not  be  sufficient  for  this  purpose  merely  to 
point  out  certain  features  of  his  disclosures  which  are  intuitivelj^een  to  be  true 
and  which  involve  truths  that  have  uniformly  been  admitted  as  such  by  good 
men  of  all  ages  of  the  Church.  This  doubtless  may  be  very  easily  done.  But 
the  credit  given  to  Swedenborg  on  this  score  is  a  vastly  inadequate  response  to 
the  extent  of  his  claim.  These  self-evident  truths,  as  you  might  term  them,  are 
found  in  him  in  such  connections — built  upon  such  principles — bearing  such  re- 
lations to  the  nature  of  God  and  the  nature  of  man — and  drawing  after  them  such 
inevitable  results — that  they  assume  an  entirely  new  phasis  and  can  scarcely  be 
recognized  as  the  same  truths  with  which  we  were  before  familiar.  You  remark 
upon  this  head, that; — 

"  There  are  many  doctrines  contained  in  Swedenborg's  writings,  which  we 
believe,  because  they  are  agreeable  to  reason  and  Scripture.  We  are  not  in- 
debted to  him  for  the  knowledge  of  these  doctrines,  though  we  may  be  under 
obligations  to  him  for  presenting  some  of  them  before  us  in  a  clear  and  strikuig 

•  manner.  For  example,  we  have  believed,  without  any  reference  to  his  writings, 
that  the  mind  or  spirit  is  essentially  the  man.  We  have  beUeved  that  man  con- 
tinues to  exist  after  the  death  gf  the  body,  a  real  and  true  man,  in  the  full  pos- 
session of  the  power  of  perceiving  and  knowing,  loving  and  hating,  enjoying 
and  suffering.  And  we  have  believed  that  he  has  all  his  mental  powers  and 
faculties,  as  a  rational  and  moral  being,  in  a  higher  degree  of  activity  and  per- 
fection after  death,  than  before.    We  have  believed  that  the  spirits  of  men  in 

'another  world,  even  before  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  are  not  only  capable 
of  intercourse  with  the  inlinite  Spirit,  but  of  communicating  their  thoughts  and 
feelings  to  one  another,  and  that  far  more  perfectly  than  was  ever  done  by 
means  of  bodily  organs  in  the  present  life.  We  have  believed  that  the  state  of 
man  in  the  other  world  w'lW  be  according  to  the  predominant  affection  which  he 
exercised  and  the  habits  he  formed  on  earth;  and  that  an  unsanctified  man  is 
incapable  of  holy  pleasures,  and  could  not  be  happy  in  heaven,  even  if  he  were 
permitted  to  dwell  there.  We  have  believed  in  the  existence  and  agency  of  good 
and  evil  angels ;  and  we  have  believed  that  they  have  a  real  influence  in  and 
upon  the  minds  of  men,  the  good  angels,  a  salutary  influence,  and  wicked  angels, 
a  hurtful  influence,  though  we  have  not  always  called  it  an  "  influx."  We  have 
helieved  that  the  Lord  Jesus,  being  truly  God,  is  the  proper  object  of  supreme 
worship,  and  that  according  to  the  example  of  the  Apostles  and  primitive  Chris- 
tians, our  prayers  are  to  be  addressed  to  him,  as  really  as  to  the  Father.  We 

'  have  believed  that  friends  and  acquaintances  will  fully  recognize  each  other  and 
be  associated  together  in  the  world  of  spirits;  that  all  the  holy,  whether  they  die 
older  or  younger,  will  in  some  way  suited  to  their  condition,  have  the  means  oi 


2..  !)n^LxML-v~  ulj^  \/vi\'\,yvc<iici:t 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


15. 


improvement,  and  will  make  rapid  advances  in  intellectual  and  moral  excellence, 
and  in  heavenly  enjoyment.  We  have  believed  that  intelligent,  moral  beings  are 
spread,  in  vast  number.*,  over  the  whole  material  creation,  and  have  employ- 
ments and  pleasures  suited  to  tiieir  nature  and  condition ;  though  we  have 
I  never  had  the  means  of  knowing  whether  the  distinction  of  sexes  and  the  insti- 
tution of  marriage  eveiywhere  prevails. 

These  and  other  doctrines  we  have  believed  on  the  ground  of  evidence  arising 
from  reason,  conscience,  and  revelation.  And  this  belief  has  preceded  our  ac- 
quaintance with  the  writings  of  Swedenborg,  and  has  been  wholly  independent 
of  them;  and  yet  these  doctrines  are  taught  by  him,  in  this  way,  with  more  or 
less  clearness,  and  with  a  mixture  of  his  own  fancies,  and,  in  some  instances, 
illustrated  very  happily.  But  my  present  object  is  not  to  dwell  upon  the  truths 
which  Swedenborg  taught,  but  to  point  out  his  errors.  And  however  great  the 
number  of  truths  found  in  his  witings,  all  the  doctruies  of  his  which  are  not 
manifestly  agreeable  to  reason  and  Scripture,  must  be  regarded  as  errors." — 
p.  116. 

These  concessions,  I  confess,  are  larger  and  freer  than  I  should  have  antici-7 
pated  from  one  who  takes  so  many  exceptions  to  what  Swedenborg  has  advan-4 
ced  upon  the  same  topics;  and  even  now  I  ask  myself,  with  some  incredulity, 
whether  such  a  belief  as  you  indicate  on  these  points  as  your  own,  is  really 
cherished,  to  any  considerable  extent,  among  the  mass  of  christians  in  our  land. 
I  doubt  exceedingly  whether  any  accredited  formula  of  doctrine  acknowledged 
by  any  of  the  Evangelical  denominations  among  us  will  be  found  to  sanction  the 
explicit  declaration  made  above, that  "man  continues  to  exist  after  the  death  of 
the  body,  a  real  and  true  man,"  by  which  must  be  fairly  understood,  in  the  pos; 
session  of  all  the  powers  and  faculties  which  go  to  constitute  his  true  and  essen- , 
tial  humanity.    Now  I  had  previously  supposed  that  the  current  belief  among 
Christians  was,  that  man  is  very  far  from  being  "a  true  and  real  man"  immediately  r 
after  death — that,  on  the  contrary,  the  resurrection  of  the  body  is  deemed 
essential  to  the  integrity  of  his  nature  in  the  other  life — that,  though  he  may  be 
said  to  live  in  the  interval  between  death  and  the  resurrection,  yet  he  lives  a  very 
imperfect  kind  of  life,  the  soul  ever  longing  and  pining  for  reunion  with  the 
destined  body.    Indeed  there  are  those  in  the  theological  ranks  who  do  not; 
scruple  to  maintain,  that  man,  as  man,  is  not  complete,  but  in  the  union  of  soul 
and  body  (the  spiritual  body),  and  though  I  do  not  charge  this  view  upon  any 
\vho  do  not  hold  it,  yet  I  think  I  cannot  be  mistaken  in  saying,  that  the  prevalent 
opinions  in  regard  to  the  disembodied  spirit  are,  to  the  last  degree,  indeterminate 
and  vague — that  while  they  ascribe  to  it  conscious  enjoyment  or  suffering,  they 
still  do  not  conceive  it  under  any  definite  conditions  of  form,  or  as  anything 
more  than  a  mere  thinking  and  feeling  principle.    I  have  yet  to  learn  that 
Swedenborg  has  misrepresented  the  popular  impression  on  this  head  when  he 
says  : — "  It  was  further  remarked,  that  the  learned  are  entirely  in  this  belief,  that 
the  soul,  which  is  to  live  after  death,  or  the  spirit,  is  an  abstracted  tlainking  prin- 
ciple ;  which  belief  appears  plainly  from  this  circumstance,  that  they  are  un- 
wiUing  to  admit  any  expression  which  has  reference  to  Avhat  is  extended,  as 
applicable  to  the  soul,  by  reason  that  a  thinking  principle  abstracted  from  its 
subject  is  not  extended,  but  the  subject  of  the  thinking  principle,  and  the  objects 
of  it,  are  extended ;  and  such  objects  as  are  not  extended,  men  limit  by  terms,  and 
make  them  extended,  in  order  that  they  may  apprehend  them ;  hence  it  plainly 
appears,  that  the  learned  have  no  idea  of  the  soul,  or  spirit,  but  as  of  a  thinking 
principle ;  and  thus  they  must  needs  believe,  that  when  they  die,  it  will  vanish." 

If  the  spirit  disembodied  is  "  a  real  and  true  man,"  one  would  think  it  must 


12 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


have  all  the  grand  constituents  of  humanity,  and  if  so  what  need  of  the  restora- 
tion of  the  buried  body,  especially  as  that  body  must  be  raised  spiritual  in  order 
to  be  fitted  to  the  conditions  of  a  spiritual  existence  ?  But  what  does  such  a  body 
add  to  the  endowments  already  possessed  by  the  spirit  ?  It  cannot  be  necessary 
to  the  functions  of  sensitive  or  perceptive  life,  for  you  say  "  it  is  in  the  full  pos- 
session of  the  power  of  perceiving."  If  then  it  is  to  receive  no  reuiforcement  of 
its  powers  on  this  score,  what  purpose  is  it  to  answer  in  the  more  integral 
economy  of  the  future  being .'  Why  should  Omnipotence  be  lavish  in  its  gifts  ? 
You  may  say,  indeed,  that  the  divine  declaration  of  the  fact  is  a  sufficient  answer 
to  all  such  queries,  and  that  interrogation  may  be  carried  to  the  point  of  impiety. 
This,  I  admit,  is  a  very  effectual  silencing  of  all  argument,  but  still  it  does  not 
satisfy  ,■  because  God  has  himself  so  constituted  the  human  mind  that  it  cannot 
blink  the  cui  bono  of  a  purpose  which  strikes  it  as  inconsistent  with  something 
else  equally  plain.  I  trust  I  am  not  void  of  a  becoming  reverence  for  eveiy  divine 
dictum  clearly  made  out,  but  I  certainly  have  no  fear  of  bringing  every  such 
alleged  enunciation  into  the  closest  contact  with  what  I  am  compelled,  by 
the  constitixtion  of  my  nature,  to  recognize  as  the  truth  of  things,  which  is  just 
as  imperative  on  my  belief  as  the  sense  of  words.  Now  as  I  am  not  only  taught 
by  Swedenborg,  but  instructed  by  my  own  inductions,  that  I  am  to  take  with 
me  a  spiritual  body  into  the  other  world,  in  every  v/ay  adequate  to  the  exigen- 
cies of  that  state  of  being,  I  am  utterly  at  a  loss  to  conceive  the  use  of  still 
another  spiritual  body  superadded  to  the  former,  and  therefore  I  have  no  scruple 
in  adopting  the  conclusion,  that  such  cannot  be  the  true-meant  design  of  the 
language  that  seems  to  imply  it.  In  other  words,  it  is  impossible  that  I  can  be 
any  more  certain,  from  lexical  or  e.xegetical  grounds,  that  such  is  the  meaning, 
than  I  am,  from  rational  grounds,  that  it  isnot  the  meaning.  Such  is  the  posture, 
and,  as  I  conceive,  the  necessary  and  inevitable  posture,  of  my  mmd  in  view  of 
[  the  premises.  And  how  am  I  to  be  answered  You  tell  me  that  such  and  such 
f  is  the  plain  sense  of  the  Word — and  the  Word  is  dictated  by  God  himself — and 
'  that  it  is  not  for  us  to  take  liberties  with  its  obvious  import.  But  I  reply — the 
intuitions  of  my  calm  reason  are  as  much  from  God  as  the  written  Word.  Has 
He  established  a  conflicting  testimony By  which  am  I  to  be  governed  ?  Do 
you  say,  my  reason  is  a  very  erring  guide ;  that  I  cannot  safely  follow  it  when 
it  leads  counter  to  the  plain  letter  of  scripture  and  that  other  men's  reason 
comes  to  no  such  results  ?  This  is  very  possible.  Nevertheless,  my  reason  is 
mine,  and  God  gave  it  to  me,  and  I  am  sure  that  I  do  violence  to  his  own  prompt- 
ings within  me  when  I  forego  its  dictates.  I  feel  too  that  I  am  bound  to  exer- 
cise my  reason  on  the  revelation  he  has  imparted,  as  well  as  upon  any  and 
everything  else  in  which  I  am  concerned,  and  I  am  to  do  tliis  under  a  solemn 
sense  of  responsibility  to  Him  as  one  "  tliat  must  give  account."  I  ask  then  what 
'  I  am  to  do  v/hen  the  clear  decision  of  my  reason  is  against  the  literal  sense  of 
his  Word  My  conviction  is  firm,  that  I  should  positively  sin  against  God  by 
postponing  the  authority  of  the  intuitions  which  grow  out  of  the  very  structure 
ofmymind,  to  that  of  the  purport  of  terms  which,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
must  be  determined  by  my  apprehensions  of  the  intrinsic  truth. 

I  am  quite  well  aware  that  1  am  here  touching,  not  only  upon  a  nice  point  of 
raetaphy.*ics,  but  of  casuistry  also.  The  tenor  of  my  remarks  brings  me  upon 
precisely  that  ground  on  which,  if  any  wliere,  a  judgment  is  to  be  pronomiced 

A       -  -         .   .  .  ..  . 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  13 

on  the  moral  character  of  religious  opinions.  The  verdict  of  hejresy'is  frequently 
pronounced  on  the  basis  of  a  scriptural  interpretation  differing  from  that  given 
by  the  condemning  party.  What  is  the  real  authority  or  validity  attaching  to 
such  a  sentence How  is  error  to  be  ascertained  but  by  a  reference  to  some 
|cornmon  standard  of  truth Who  is  in  possession  of  that  standard,  and  how  is 
^he  to  make  good  the  evidence  of  his  claim The  church  of  the  Papacy  has 
^hndeed  a  summary  way  of  deciding  all  issues  of  this  kmd.  The  only  appeal 
is  to  the  oracular  voice  of  the  church  itself.  But  as  you  and  I,  and  Protestants 
generally,  hold  to  the  right  of  private  judgment,  the  question  again  comes  up 
as  to  the  grounds  on  which  one  body  of  christians  is  authorized  to  impeach 
another  of  heresy.  It  is  certainly  no  more  than  charity  to  suppose  that  each  one 
is  sincere  in  its  convictions,  and  that  it  has  acted  upon  the  clearest  light  of  rea- 
son in  determining  the  genuine  import  of  the  Word,  the  acknowledged  source 
of  all  doctrines.  Are  you  or  your  Church  authorized  to  sit  in  judgment  on  their 
decisions  If  so,  by  what  title They  have  exercised  their  deepest  and  coolest 
reason  upon  the  verities  propounded  to  their  faith.  You  have  done  no  less — no 
more.  But  the  conclusions  reached  are  widely  at  variance.  Which  party  then 
is  warranted  to  assert  to  itself  the  claim  of  truth,  and  to  denounce  upon  the  other 
the  charge  of  error,  and  upon  what  grounds  ;  The  charge  can  be  of  no  moral 
efficacy  except  so  far  as  it  fastens  itself  upon  the  interior  rational  convictions  of 
the  soul.  But  here  the  field  is  preoccupied  by  a  directly  opposite  class  of  con- 
victions equally  legitimately  attained.  In  the  forum  of  conscience,  then,  to 
what  amounts  the  sentence  of  "  heretical  pravity  ?"  What  weight  has  the  judg- 
ment of  man  unless  it  is  felt,  in  the  mind's  deepest  recesses,  to  echo  the  judg- 
ment of  God  ? 

But  it  is  said  that  heresy^  endangers  salvation — that  those  who  are  in  a  state  • 
of  salvation  have  a  certain  instinctive  perception  of  truth  which  cannot  pertain 
to  those  who  are  out  of  it — and  this  truth  they  are  entitled  to  declare  by  virtue 
of  their  conscious  possession  of  it.  But  here  is  a  new  element  introduced  into  the, 
debate.  We  now  pass  out  of  the  region  of  the  intellectual  into  that  of  the  moral — 
from  the  domain  of  Truth  to  that  of  Good — and  here  the  receivers  of  Sweden- 
borg  find  themselves  at  home.  The  question  then  arises,  how  far  error  of  judg- 
ment may  consist  with  goodness  of  heart — to  what  extent  one  may  be  in  Good 
while  at  the  same  time  he  is  not  in  Truth.  But  who  shall  determine  this  ?  It  is 
clearly  beyond  the  province  of  human  power.  It  is  impossible  to  pronounce 
upon  opinion,  as  saving  or  damning,  except  upon  the  eimple  ground  of  Char- 
acter. Life  is  the  only  criterion  of  Doctrine,  and  of  Life  we  can  only  judge  by  the 
■external  practical  indicditions*   The  final  arbitrament  must  be  left  to  the  Omni- 


*  "  Truths  considered  in  themselves  do  not  give  life,  but  goods  ;  truths  are  only  the 
recipients  of  life,  that  is,  of  good;  wherefore  no  one  can  ever  say  that  he  maybe  saved 
by  truths,  or,  as  it  is  commonly  expressed,  by  faith  alone,  unless  there  be  good  in  the 
truths  which  are  of  faith ;  the  good  therein  must  be  the  good  of  charity,  hence  faith 
itself,  in  an  internal  sense,  is  nothing  else  than  charity.  As  to  saying  that  an  acknow- 
ledgement of  truth  is  the  faith  which  saves,  it  is  to  be  known,  that  with  those  who  live 
in  things  contrary  to  charity,  no  such  acknowledgement  can  exist,  but  only  a  kind  of 
persuasion,  to  which  is  adjoined  the  life  of  self-love,  or  of  the  love  of  the  world  ;  conse- 
quently in  this  acknowledeement  there  is  not  the  life  of  faith,  which  is  of  charity." — 
A.  C.  2261. 

"  The  quality  of  every  one's  interiors  is  made  manifest  in  another  life,  where  the  exte- 
riors are  removed,  and  then  it  appears,  tkat  where  there  is  no  charity,  the  interiors  are 


-    14  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

cient  Awarder.  We  are  bound  to  recognize  as  Christians,  and  as  in  the  way 
to  be  saved,  all  those  whose  lives  do  not  belie  their  profession!!^  We  have  no 
warrant  to  erect  any  other  standard.  The  tree  is  to  be  known  by  its  fruits. 
The  only  fatal  heresy  is  a  depraved  love  and  a  corresponding  life.  I  do  not  deny 
but  that  it  i6  practicable  to  characterize  correctly  certain  opinions  as  false,  but  I  do 
deny  that  it  is  competent  for  any  man,  or  any  body  of  men,  to  impeach  of  dan- 
gerous heresy  a  system  of  doctrinal  belief  the  espousers  of  which  are,  in  the 
eye  of  charity,  in  the  good  of  life.* 

I  admit  that  I  have  lapsed  into  somewhat  of  a  digression  in  the  foregoing 
train  of  remark.  But  I  wished  to  bestow  some  consideration  on  a  theme  wliich 
usually  receives  very  little — viz.  the  moral  estimate  which  is  to  be  formed  of  the 
errors  of  Swedenborg's  doctrines  and  the  practical  bearing  which  their  adoption 
is  liliely  to  have  on  the  salvation  or  perdition  of  its  disciples.  I  speak  in  plain 
language  on  this  head,  because  this,  after  all,  is  the  great  issue.  It  is  here  that 
the  opponents  of  the  system  find  their  warrant  for  aiming  to  counteract  its  prev- 
alence. They  are  primarily  prompted  to  this  by  a  serious  conviction  that  the 
errors  it  embodies  peril  the  salvation  of  the  soul,  and  I  wish  to  evince  that  on  this 
very  point  there  are  principles  involved,  which  require  investigation  as  truly  as 
the  abstract  character  of  the  doctrines.  Yet  they  are  principles  that  are  very  sel- 
dom adverted  to  in  this  controversy,  or  in  fact  in  any  other.  Where  do  we  find 
any  explicit  statement  of  the  grounds  on  which  the  sentence  of  fatal  tendency  in 
doctrinal  sentiments  is  pronounced Yet  what  more  imperiously  demands  it,  in 
order  to  justify  the  earnest  repobation,  and  often  fierce  persecution,  with  which 
those  sentiments  are  assailed  ?  To  myself  the  following  remarks  of  Svveden- 
borg  are  very  impressive.  "  They  who  are  gifted  with  goods,  from  a  celes- 
tial origin,  that  is,  with  celestial  goods,  and  spiritual  goods,  are  also  gifted  with 
eternal  salvation,  that  is,  are  saved.  That  none  may  remain  in  ignorance,  how 
it  is  with  the  salvation  of  men  after  their  decease,  it  is  to  be  stated  in  a  few 
words.  There  are  many  who  say,  that  man  is  saved  by  faith,  or  as  they  express 
it,  if  he  only  have  faith,  but  amongst  these  the  greatest  part  do  not  know  what 
faith  is ;  some  suppose  it  is  mere  thought ;  some  tliat  it  is  an  acknowledgment 
of  something  to  be  believed ;  others  that  it  is  the  whole  doctrine  of  faith  which 
is  to  be  believed  ;  others  again  otlrerwise ;  thus  they  err  in  the  bare  knowledge 


altogether  contrary  to  all  the  truths  of  faith.  It  is  not  possible  for  those  to  receive  the 
life  of  charity  in  another  life,  who  have  not  received  it,  in  some  degree,  in  the  life  of 
the  body,  for  the  life  they  had  formed  in  the  world  remains  after  death,  and  therefore 
ihey  can  then  arise  to  and  have  the  life  of  charity." — A.  C.  '20  li). 

*  "  Doctrinals  alone  do  not  constitute  the  external,  much  less  the  internal  of  the 
church,  as  was  shown  above  ;  nor  do  they  distinguish  churches  before  the  Lord :  but 
this  is  effected  by  a  Ule  according  to  doctrinals,  all  which,  if  they  are  tr«e,  regard  char- 
ity as  their  fundamental ;  what  is  the  design  of  doctrinals  but  to  teach  how  man  should 
live  1  The  several  churches  in  the  Christian  world  are  distinguished  by  their  doctrinals, 
and  they  hence  call  themselves  Roman  Catholics,  Lutherans,  Calvinists,  or  the  Re- 
formed and  Evangelical  Protestants  ;  with  many  others.  This  distinction  of  names  arises 
solely  from  doctrinals,  and  would  never  have  had  place,  if  they  had  made  love  to 
the  Lord,  and  charity  towards  the  neighbor,  the  principal  point  of  faith.  Doctrinals 
would  then  be  only  varieties  of  opinion  concerning  the  mysteries  of  faith.,  which  true 
Christians  would  leave  to  every  one  according  to  liis  conscience,  and  would  say  from  the 
heart,  that  he  is  a  true  Christian  who  lives  as  a  Christian,  or  as  the  Lord  teaches.  Thus 
one  church  would  be  formed  out  of  all  these  diverse  ones,  and  all  disagreements  arising 
from  mere  doctrinals  would  vanish,  yea,  all  the  animosities  of  one  against  another 
would  be  dissipated  in  a  moment,  and  the  kingdom  of  the  Lord  would  be  established 
on  earth."— -4.  C.  1799. 

x|.  ■ 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


15 


of  what  faith  is,  consequently  in  the  knowledge  of  what  that  is,  by  which  man 
is  saved.  But  still  it  is  not  mere  thought,  neither  is  it  an  acluiowledgment  of 
what  is  to  be  believed,  nor  a  knowledge  of  all  things  pertaining  to  the  doctrine 
of  faith :  by  these  things  no  one  can  be  saved,  inasmuch  as  they  can  take  root 
no  deeper  than  in  the  thought,  and  the  thought  does  not  save  any  one,  but  it  is 
the  life,  which  man  has  procured  for  himself  in  the  world  by  the  knowledges  of 
faith ;  this  life  remains,  whereas  all  thought,  which  does  not  accord  with  his  life, 
perishes,  even  so  that  it  becorhes  null ;  heavenly  consociations  are  according  to 
the  kinds  of  life,  and  never  according  to  the  kinds  of  thought  which  are  not  of  the 
life ;  the  thoughts  which  are  not  of  the  life  are  hypocritical,  and  such  are  alto- 
gether rejected.  In  general,  life  is  of  two  kinds,  one  infernal,  the  other  celestial ; 
infernal  life  is  contracted  from  all  those  ends,  thoughts,  and  works  which  flow 
from  self-love,  consequently  from  hatred  against  our  neighbor;  celestial  life  is 
contracted  from  all  those  ends,  thoughts,  and  works,  which  are  of  love  towards 
our  neighbor ;  this  latter  is  the  life,  to  which  all  those  things  called  faith  have  res- 
pect, and  it  is  procured  by  all  things  appertaining  to  faith.  Hence  it  may  ap- 
pear what  faith  is,  viz.  that  it  is  charity,  for  all  things  which  are  called  the  doc-.? 
trines  of  faith  lead  to  charity  ;  they  are  all  contained  m  charity,  and  they  are  all 
derived  from  charity.  The  soul  after  the  life  of  the  body  is  such  as  its  love  is." — 
A.  C.  2228. 

But  to  return  to  the  subject  of  your  concessions.  You  intimate  that  the  mass 
of  Christians  believe  in  the  doctrine  of  angelic  existence  and  agency — that  Jesus 
Christ  is  truly  God — that  he  is  the  proper  object  of  supreme  worship — that 
prayer  is  as  really  to  be  addressed  to  him  as  to  the  Father — and  that  friends  and 
acquaintances  will  recognize  and  be  associated  with  each  other  in  the  world  of 
spirits.  For  these  items  of  belief  you  say  the  world  is  not  indebted  to  Sweden- 
borg,  and  the  argument  is,  that  no  special  claim  can  be  set  up  in  behalf  of  his 
revelations  on  these  heads,  inasmuch  as  all  that  can  be  recognized  in  them  as 
true,  was  well  known  and  generally  received  before  he  lived  or  taught. 

I  reply  to  this,  that  on  every  one  of  these  points  Swedenborg's  teachings  are 
so  immensely  diverse  from  all  that  had  ever  before  been  held  concerning  them — 
they  are  mixed  up  with  so  many  new  elements — referred  to  so  many  new  princi- 
ples— and  presented  in  so  many  new  phases — that  they  become,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  new  truths.  I  must  say,  therefore,  that  there  is  an  intrinsic  unfairness, 
however  undesigned,  in  withholding  from  him  the  credit  of  novelty  in  this  part 
of  his  disclosures.  He  has  taught  in  them  what  no  man  ever  taught  before. 
Nor  can  these  truths  properly  be  said  to  be  believed,  according  to  his  presenta- 
tion of  them,  unless  the  belief  embraces  all  he  has  said  in  respect  to  them.  Con- 
sequently it  is  unjust  to  intimate  that  he  has  made  no  advances  upon  our  former 
knowledge  in  any  of  the  above  departments,  when  those  very  truths  are  so  ex- 
hibited by  him  that  they  virtually  cease  to  be  the  old  truths,  with  which  Chris- 
tians have  been  always  familiar. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  admitted  doctrine  of  Christ's  divinity.  "  We  have  be- 
lieved that  the  Lord  Jesus,  being  truly  God,  is  the  proper  object  of  supreme  wor- 
ship, and  that,  according  to  the  example  of  the  Apostles  and  the  primitive  Chris- 
tians, our  prayers  are  to  be  as  really  addressed  to  him,  as  to  the  Father."  If 
Jesus  Christ  be  "  truly  God,"  and  the  "  object  of  supreme  worship,"  he  must 
certainly  be  the  supreme  and  only  God,  for  we  can  of  course  recognize  but  one 


16 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


such  Being  in  the  universe.  If  prayer  is  to  be  addressed  to  Him,  in  his  charac- 
ter of  supreme  Deity,  then  what  is  termed  "  the  Lord's  Prayer"  is  to  be  addressed 
to  him  in  that  character,  as  well  as  any  other.  Do  you  believe  this  ?  Does  the 
mass  of  the  christian  world  believe  it Would  they  not  inwardly  shudder  at 
the  idea  of  thus  seeming  to  confound  the  person  of  the  Father  with  that  of  the 
Son  Can  they  be  brought  for  one  moment,  to  admit  that  there  is  any  soujid 
sense  in  which  the  term  Father  is  to  be  applied  to  the  Son Is  not  the  popular 
apprehension  of  the  distinction  of  three  Divine  Persons  at  utter  variance  with  such 
a  view .'  Do  not  their  thoughts,  in  the  offering  up  of  this  prayer,  penetrate  be- 
yond the  person  of  the  Son  and  fix  upon  that  of  the  Father  ?  And  do  they  not 
prefer  this  prayer  to  the  first  person  of  the  Trinity  in  the  name  and  for  the  sake  of 
the  second You  will  scarcely  refuse  to  admit  that  this  is  the  case.  Now  it 
would  be  gratuitous  to  inform  you,  that  this  is  directly  contrary  to  the  teaching 
of  Swedenborg  and  to  the  belief  of  his  adherents.  Guided  by  his  illuminated  in- 
terpretation of  the  sacred  Word,  they  are  taught  to  recognize  m  Jesus  Christ  the 
true  and  only  Jehovah,  and  no  other  sense  do  they  affix  to  the  terra  Lord.  They 
know  no  other  Trinity  than  is  concentrated  in  Him.  As  this,  in  their  view,  is 
not  a  Trinity  of  persons,  but  of  principles,  tliey  consequently  know  nothmg  of  im- 
plormg  one  divine  person  for  the  sake  of  another,  just  as  they  know  nothing  of 
an  atonement  or  satisfaction  made  by  one  of  these  persons  to  another.  This  they 
regard  cis  the  grand  corruption  and  perversion  of  the  Gospel,  while  at  the  same 
time  they  recognize,  in  its  fullest  extent,  the  absolute  and  inexorable  necessity 
both  of  the  incarnation  and  of  the  atonement,  as  they  conceive  those  doctrines  to  be 
taught  in  the  inspired  oracles.  And,  be  it  observed,  they  do  not  on  these  points, 
build  their  faith  exclusively  on  what  may  be  termed  the  supernatural  disclosures 
of  Swedenborg.  They  are  perfectly  willing  to  abide  by  the  results  of  the  most 
fair  exegetical  process  in  determming  tlie  literal  sense  of  the  Word.  They  re- 
quire nothing  more  than  the  admission,  which  you  certainly  will  not  withhold, 
that  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  of  "  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms" 
are  of  equal  divine  authority  with  the  New.  This  conceded,  they  are  prepared 
to  show  that  the  Jehovah  of  the  Old  Testament  is  identically  the  same  Divine 
Personage  with  the  Jesus  of  the  New,  and  as  they  have  no  intimations  of  there 
being  two  Jehovahs,  one  in  heaven  and  anftther  on  earth  hypostasized  in  Jesus, 
they  can  conceive  of  uo  grounds  for  such  a  peculiar  economy  of  redemption  as  is  set 
forth  in  the  great  mass  of  Christian  creeds.  Yet  the  redemption-work  of  Jesus 
is  the  only  foundation  of  their  hope. 

The  reply  to  all  this  will  undoubtedly  be,  that  in  denying  tlie  common  construction 
of  this  and  the  related  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  we  deny  the  substantial  truth  of 
each.  Here  then  the  matter  rests.  It  becomes  a  pmre  question  of  interpretation, 
and  to  this  question  apply,  in  all  their  force,  the  remarks  made  above  as  to  the 
assumed  infallibility  of  one  mode  of  interpretation  over  all  others.  On  what 
solid  principle  is  this  to  be  made  out And  then  as  to  the  verdict  upon  the 
morale  of  the  matter — who  is  to  pronounce  this 

*  "  Man,  according  to  the  quality  and  quantity  of  remains,  that  is,  of  good  and  truth 
with  him,  enjoys  bliss  and  happiness  in  another  life,  for  as  was  said,  they  are  treas- 
ured up  in  his  interior  man,  and  are  then  manifested,  when  he  puts  off  corporeal  and 
worldly  things.  The  Lord  alone  knows  the  quality  and  quantity  of  the  remains  with 
man,  and  man  can  never  know  tliis  ;  for  man  at  this  day  is  such,  that  he  can  put  on 
a  semblance  of  good,  when  yet  inwardly  there  is  nothing  but  evil ;  and  also  man  may 


1 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  IT 

From  what  I  have  now  said,  somewhat  of  a  fair  judgment  may  be  formed  as 
to  the  real  community  of  teaching  between  Swedenborg  and  the  ordinary  stand- 
ards of  Christendom  on  this  single  point  of  our  Lord's  divinity  and  his  title  to 
supreme  worship.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  they  are  at  a  measureless  remove  from 
each  other.  The  "Doctrine  of  the  Lord  "  of  Swedenborg  may  be  said  to  be  toto 
calo  different  from  that  which  has  obtained  currency  in  the  church  and  from 
this  flows  by  necessary  consequence  an  entirely  different  view  of  the  whole 
scheme  of  dogmatic  Christianity.  Upon  this,  however,  I  do  not  here  enlarge. 
My  present  object  is  simply  to  show  that  Swedenborg's  claim  to  have  made  a 
new  revelation  of  the  interior  genius  of  our  religion  cannot  be  vacated  by  the 
plea,  that  he  has,  in  many  instances,  merely  reproduced,  in  new  forms  and  as- 
pects, long  established  and  widely  admitted  truths.  These  truths  here  come  before 
us  in  an  entirely  new  character,  and  it  is  a  great  wronging  of  his  developments 
to  represent  them  as  mere  common-place  truisms.  You  will  observe  how- 
ever, that  I  am  not  exhibiting  the  evidence  of  the  divinity  of  his  revelations,  but 
simply  specifying  certain  things  which  are  no  evidence  to  the  contrary. 

You  say  in  addition : 

"  The  writings  of  Swedenborg  unquestionably  contain  a  large  amoimt  of 
truths,  relating  to  God  and  Christ,  to  divine  Providence,  to  saints  and  sinners,  to 
tlie  selfishness,  deceit,  and  wickedness  of  the  heart,  to  the  graces  of  Christianity, 
to  our  dependence  on  God  in  connection  with  our  duty  to  love  and  obey  him, 
to  the  disclosures  which  will  be  made  of  human  characters  in  the  future  world, 
and  to  a  variety  of  other  subjects.  Swedenborg  teaches  some  truths  in  the 
language  commonly  employed.  But  for  the  most  part,  he  sets  forth  well  known 
and  acknowledged  truths  in  a  language  of  his  own, — in  a  phraseology  which  he 
constantly  repeats,  and  to  which  he  seems  to  be  stiffly  devoted,  although  it  is 
really  very  strange  and  abstruse,  and  to  beginners  in  the  study  of  his  works,  fre- 
quently unintelligible.  But  in  one  way  or  another,  either  in  the  usual  forms  of 
expression,  or  m  a  singular,  philosophical  style,  or  in  the  i^eculiar  manner  of 
rhetorical  fictions,  or  dreams,  his  writings  contain  many  moral  and  religious 
truths." 

The  peculiarity  of  diction  to  which  you  advert  has  been  frequently  remarked 
upon  and  objected  to,  and  is  doubtless  very  apt  to  impress  the  novitiate  reader 
unfavorably.  It  produced,  in  the  outset,  its  usual  effect  upon  my  own  mind, 
although  this  soon  passed  away,  as  I  became  more  conversant  with  the  peculiar 
genius  of  his  system.  On  all  theological  subjects  we  become  habituated  to  a^, 
certain  stereotype  phraseology,  any  departure  from  which  is  apt  to  beget  a/ 
Ktent  suspicion  of  a  departure  from  the  essential  truth  conveyed  by  it.  Now 
in  Swedenborg's  writings,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  the  fundamental  truths 
aiccredited  among  Christians  are  presented  in  entirely  new  aspects,  being  for 
the  most  part  referred  to  the  primary  psychological  principles  on  which  all 
moral  truths  rest.    It  is  not  unnatural,  therefore,_that  the  estabhshed  phraseology 


appear  as  evil,  when  yet  inwardly  he  possesses  good  ;  wherefore  it  is  never  allowable 
for  one  man  to  judge  of  another  as  to  the  quality  of  his  spiritual  life,  for,  as  was  said,  the 
Lord  alone  knows  this:  yet  it  is  allowable  for  every  one  to  judge  of  another's  quality  as^ 
to  moral  and  civil  life,  for  this  is  of  concern  to  society.  It  is  a  very  common  thing,  for 
those  who  have  conceived  an  opinion  respecting  any  truth  of  faith,  to  judge  of  others^ 
that  they  cannot  be  saved,  but  by  believing  as  they  do,  which  nevertheless  the  Lord 
has  forbidden.  Matt.  vii.  1,  2  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  has  been  made  known  to  me  by  much 
experience,  that  persons  of  every  religion  are  saved,  if  so  be,  by  a  life  of  charity,  they 
have  received  remains  of  good  and  of  apparent  truth. — A.  C.  2284. 
2 


•  6 


18  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

should  be  very  considerably  modified  by  the  new  relations  in  which  the  subject- 
matter  of  his  discourse  is  exhibited.  But  it  may  be  justly  claimed  for  our  au- 
thor that  no  one  is  more  uniformly  consistent  in  the  use  of  terms,  or  is  at  more 
pains  to  put  the  reader,  from  the  beginning,  in  full  possession  of  the  exact  mean- 
ing, m  all  its  various  shades,  which  he  would  have  attached  to  them.  With  this 
he  soon  becomes  familiar,  and  from  a  certain  sense  of  the  intrinsic  adaptedness  of 
the  word  to  the  idea,  he  desiderates  no  other  form  of  expression  than  what  he 
finds.  The  great  question  in  the  minds  of  his  receivers  is,  as  to  the  intrinsic 
truth  of  the  thought  which  is  to  be  conveyed.  When  satisfied  on  this  score,  they 
are  generally  satisfied  also,  that  the  phraseology  could  not  well  be  improved. 
I  might  perhaps  even  go  farther  on  this  head,  and  say  that  the  language  employed 
by  Swedenborg  grows  out  of  the  peculiar  state  in  which  it  was  uttered,  and  tliat  it 
has  about  it  a  certain  breathing  of  a  supernatural  sphere,  which  is  altogether  sui 
gtneris,  and  when  duly  weighed  affording  no  slight  evidence  of  that  internal  ele- 
vation of  the  faculties  by  which  it  was  undoubtedly  prompted.  But  upon  this  I 
do  not  insist,  though  it  is  a  feature  of  the  system  which  weighs  much  with  me 
in  my  general  estimate  of  the  man  in  his  assumed  character.  He  came  as 
the  herald  of  a  dispensation  the  motto  of  which  is,  Vetera  iransimmt — "  Old 
things  are  passed  away ;  behold,  I  make  all  things  new."  I  do  not  see  why  this 
comprehensive  saying  may  not  embrace  the  forms  of  theological  diction  as  Avell 
as  a  thousand  other  things.  If  we  have  new  truths  imparted,  Avhy  should  they 
not  be  clothed  in  a  new  dress  ?  As  to  the  "  constant  repetition"  of  this  phraseol- 
ogy I  see  nothing  more  implied  in  the  remark  than  uniformity  of  usage,  and  this 
certainly  is  no  fault,  provided  it  be  origiually  adopted  upon  sufficient  grounds. 

With  a  grateful  recognition  of  your  allowance  of  "  many  moral  and  religious 
truths"  contained  in  these  writings,  I  remain. 

Yours,  &c. 

GEO.  BUSH. 

LETTER  nr. 

Rev.  and  Dear  Sir  : 

In  entermg  upon  the  more  detailed  examination  of  the  doctrines  under  re- 
view, you  say : 

"  I  would  direct  your  particular  attention  to  the  test  of  Swedenborg's  principles, 
which  is  laid  down  by  Prof.  Bush,  who  has,  with  distinguished  ability,  under- 
taken their  defence.  This  test  he  clearly  sets  before  us  in  the  following  language. 
He  says,  that  all  the  grand  features  of  the  system  '  appeal  directlj  to  tlie  inner 
lintuitions  of  the  reason.' — '  The  truth  of  Swedenborg's  revelations  can  oiTTyTe 
made  apparent  by~tlielr  mtrinsic  character.' — '  The  truth  of  his  mission  is  to  be 
established  by  the  truth  of  his  message,  and  by  that  only.' — 'We  must  rely 
upon  internal  evidence.' — '  Kis  principles  appeal  directly  to  consciousness  and 
reason. 

"  I  make  no  objection  to  this  test.  But  how  shall  we  apply  it  7  Tliis  is  a  serious 
question.  How  are  we  to  judge  of  tlie  truth  of  the  message  ?  Hoie  are  we  to  be  satis- 
fied as  to  the  intrinsic  character  of  the  system,  and  as  to  tlie  interned  evidence  on  which 
we  are  to  rely  ?  The  appeal,  it  is  said,  is  directly  to  the  iniier  intuitions  of  the  rea- 
son. But  whose  reason  ?  The  reason  of  one  man  differs  widely,  as  to  its  state 
and  mode  of  exercise,  from  the  reason  of  another.  Consequently  the  appeal  in 
different  cases  will  meet  with  different  receptions  and  lead  to  different  results. 
Tliis  will  certainly  be  the  case,  unless  the  peculiar  principles  of  Swedenborg  are 
like  tlie  first  principles  or  self-evident  trutlis  of  Geometry,  concerning  which  all 
men  must  form  the  same  judgment.  But  no  one  can  pretend  that  this  is  the 
case.   In  judging  of  moral  and  religious  subjects,  human  reason  itself  does,  in 


■  t-  (  U  c 


L  - 


1 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  1» 


1*  i- 


i 


very  many  cases,  need  a  standard  or  guide.    In  other  words,  the  rational  being, 
man,  is,  in  many  cases,  incompetent  to  determine  what  is  truth,  without  being  V   }>  , 
instructed  by  a  wisdom  superior  to  his  own.    If  we  are  consistent  Christians,  y 
we  believe  that  we  have  been  thus  instructed ;  and  we  have  settled  it  in  our     ,  '  • 
minds,  that  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  are  the  word  of  God,  clolhei-)  "  A  ' 
with  divine  authority,  and  are  the  only  sure  and  infallible  rule  of  our  faith  and  practice,  \ 
This  has  become  a  fundamental  principle  with  us.    On  the  ground  of  clear  and 
sufficient  evidence,  our  reason  receives  it  and  rests  upon  it;  and  we  can  no^ 
longer  call  it  in  question.    Now  this  word  of  God  has  taught  us  a  system  of  moral*  Jl» 
and  religious  truths,  which  we  can  no  more  doubt,  than  we  can  the  veracity  of  y 
God.    When  therefore  we  undertake,  in  the  use  of  our  reason,  to  form  a  )udg*  ^  , 
.^meut  as  to  the  truth  of  any  other  system,  how  strange  would  it  be,  if  we  should 
•  divest  our  reason  of  the  benefit  of  its  settled  convictions !    With  what  ingi-atitude  '-^  fv  P 
►  and  perverseness  should  we  be  chargeable,  if  we  should  extinguish  or  under-  *  ' 
value  the  light  which  shines  upon  us  from  revelation,  and  go  back  to  the  dark-  > 
ness  of  deism  and  heathenism!    This  is  what  we  cannot  do.    If  we  would  ^  . 
^maintain  the  character  of  Christians,  we  must  use  our  reason,  as  enlightened  by  ' 
^revelation.    The  more  it  is  thus  enlightened — the  more  it  is  furnished  with  scrip- 
"^ture-principles,  and  the  more  closely  it  adheres  to  those  principles  in  all  its  act- 
s'ings;  so  much  the  more  likely  will  it  be  to  form  right  judgments.    They  who  -. 
■"heartily  believe  the  word  of  God,  and  duly  regard  its  heavenly  light,  shall  not  ^ 
^  ^walk  in  darkness.    In  the  case  now  before  us,  what  better  can  we  do  than  to  > 
^  ''copy  the  example  of  the  noble  Bereans,  who  searched  the  Scriptures  daily,  to  see  ^  ^  4N 
,  .  whether  that  which  they  heard  was  true.    We  must  go  directly  to  the  Bible  ;  we  .     »  " 
^^must  go  with  all  our  intellectual  and  moral  faculties;  and  our  great  inquiry       .\  ~^ 
i  ^must  be,  whether  the  disclosures  of  Swedenborg  are  in  harmony  with  the  Scriptures. 

Our  reason  and  our  philosophy,  instead  of  attempting  to  be  a  guide  to  the  word  "  ^ 
of  God,  must  be  guided  by  it." — p.  15. 

^  ,    I  have  given  this  passage  at  full  length,  because  it  embodies,  with  much  dis-  * .  -^^ 
^.Jtinctness,  thejwi  of  the  grand  objection  usually  urged  against  the  soundness  of  .^F  s\ 
I  ^the  test  which  T  have  here  proposed.    "  The  appeal,  it  is  said,  is  directly  to  the  ^  r   >  • 
J  ^  inner  intuitions  of  the  reason.    But  whose  reason  ?    The  reason  of  one  man  differs  ..^  |^ 
?  *  widely,  as  to  its  state  and  mode  of  exercise,  from  the  reason  of  another.    Con-  J  ,  ^ 

sequently  the  appeal  in  different  cases  will  meet  with  different  receptions  and  '  y 
_ ;  lead  to  different  results."    And  you  intimate  that  such  a  claim  as  I  have  asserted  ' 
>^  ^  for  the  peculiar  principles  of  Swedenborg  camiot  be  maintained,  unless  they  are 

like  the  first  principles  or  self-evident  truths  of  Geometry.    Now  from  the  above      ^  > 
position  respecting  reason  I  do  not  scruple  to  affirm  my  total  and  unequivocal 
j  dissent,  and  in  the  case  before  us  I  appeal  directly  to  your  reason,  as  well  as  to  i\ 
that  of  every  man  who  is  disposed  to  exercise  his  faculties  upon  the  evidence  of  If 
truth  in  regard  to  moral  subjects.    I  cannot  doubtfor  a  moment  that  there  is  a  com-^  '^  J  ^ 
O^y>i^on  reason*p ertaining  to  man  as  man,  which  will  always  draw  substantially  the  ^ 
^  ^  same  conclusions  from  the  same  premises,  when  those  premises  are  distinctly  be-       \  _ 

>~  fore  the  mind.  I  cannot  question  that  there  are  moral  axioms  which  command 
>4  \  assent  as  truly  as  mathematical  axioms,  and  that  nothing  more  is  needed  than  their 

simple  enunciation,  in  a  clear  light,  to  receive  the  instantaneous  admission  of  their  ,  w 
^  ■  truth.    This  arises  from  the  very  constitution  of  the  human  mind.    It  cannot  see  t 

the  meaning  of  certain  propositions  -without  at  the  same  time  seeing  their  truth. .  " 
J  "tJ^^  reosojimg  {ratiocinatio)  of  different  men  is  undoubtedly  different;  but  the        :  ■  ^ 
^  J  reason  {ratio)  of  all  men  is  the  same,  because  it  is  in  fact  the  Universal  Reason — the 
^v.;:;^ reason  of  God  himself    The  utterances  of  this  inward  oracle  may  be  perverted^ 
^  V  by  the  influence  of  affection  and  passion.    The  light  of  the  rational  eye  may  be 
^  j;^  darkened  by  the  mists  of  ignorance,  of  prejudice,  of  error,  and  other  causes,  but 
.  when  the  clouds  are  cleared  away  it  always,  in  all  men,  sees  the  same  things  in 


20 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


the  same  manner.  A  Hottentot  or  an  Esquimaux  must  see  the  propositions  of 
Euclid  in  the  same  light  with  Newton  or  La  Place,  when  his  mind  is  opened  by 
the  process  of  intelleciual  culture  to  perceive  the  truth  of  the  axioms  on  which 
they  rest,  and  to  grasp  the  chain  of  consecutive  demonstration.  He  must  yield 
the  same  assent,  upon  the  same  evidence,  that  is  yielded  by  Edwards  or  Dwight 
to  the  eternal  distinction  between  right  and  wrong— to  the  duty  of  lovhig  and 
serving  God — to  the  propriety  of  pursuing  happiness  rather  than  misery — to  the 
justice  of  the  Golden  Rule — and  to  various  other  moral  axioms  upon  which  the 
well-beiug  of  the  rational  creation  obviously  depends.  All  this  arises  from  the 
fact  of  the  community  of  reason  in  the  universal  mind  of  man. 

If  it  be  not  so,  I  should  be  gratified  to  learn  on  what  grounds  you  would  feel 
authorized  to  pass  censure  on  those  who  reject  the  evidence  of  the  truth  of  the 
Christian  Religion.  You  urge  the  claims  of  this  Religion  upon  a  philosophical 
skeptic.  He  replies  that  he  has  given  the  subject  his  serious  and  careful  consid- 
eration, and  that  the  verdict  of  his  dispassionate  reason  is  against  it.  Do  you, 
in  your  judgment,  acquit  his  decision  of  all  wrong  ?  Are  you  not  mwardly  con- 
scious that  there  is  some  radical  vice  in  the  mental  process  by  which  he  has 
brought  himself  to  this  conclusion Do  you  scruple  to  assure  him  that  his  rea- 
soning really  does  violence  to  his  reason .'  Do  you  not  confidently  affirm,  that 
God  has  so  constituted  the  human  mind — that  he  has  established  such  a  harmony 
between  the  dictates  of  the  reason  and  the  grand  truths  of  Revelation — that  it  is 
absolutely  impossible  that  the  latter  should  be  rejected  when  the  former  has  fair 
play  Neither  you  nor  he  may  be  able  to  detect  the  precise  point  where  the 
defect  in  the  process  inheres,  but  you  are  positively  certain  that  the  defect  exists 
somewhere,  and  that  he  is  not  faithful  to  the  voice  of  reason  in  rejecting  Revelation. 
You  have  not  a  doubt  that  the  verdict  of  enlightened  reason,  when  the  evidence 
is  fairly  weighed,  will  evermore  be  in  accordance  with  the  claims  of  the  Christian 
faith.  It  is  so  in  your  own  case,  and  3/ou  cannot  conceive  that  it  should  be 
otherwise  in  his. 

Yet  allow  me  to  ask,  with  what  propriety  you  can  challenge  the  soundness  of 
his  decision  on  the  principle  affii-med  in  your  Lectures,  that  the  reason  of  dif- 
ferent men  will,  on  the  same  subjects,  lead  them  to  different  results  ?  How  can 
you  any  more  justly  impeach  his  reason  for  rejecting  Christianity,  than  he  yours 
for  embracing  it?  If  I  rightly  apprehend  the  purport  of  your  argument,  you 
have  furnished  him  with  a  complete  apology  for  his  conclusion.  In  your  con- 
troversy with  the  skeptic,  in  behalf  of  Cliristianity,  you  appeal  to  "  the  inner  in- 
tuitions of  the  reason."  He  says  to  you,  as  you  to  me,  "  I  make  no  objection 
to  the  test.  But  how  shall  we  apply  it  ?  To  whose  reason  shall  we  appeal  ? 
You  submit  the  matter  to  my  reason  and  my  reason  discards  the  verdict  of 
yours."  What  have  you  to  reply  so  long  as  he  is  merely  acting  on  the  very 
principle  with  which  your  logic  has  furnished  him .' 

I  am  here  reminded  of  a  very  peculiar  train  of  remark  bearing  somewhat  upon 
this  subject  in  the  Rev.  Mr.  Landis'  reply  to  my  work  on  the  Resurrection. 
Whatever  may  be  the  success  of  my  attempt  to  rebut  the  force  of  your  reasoning 
;  )  on  this  head,  I  certainly  feel  no  diliiculty  in  regard  to  his.    In  his  chapter  on 
•5  ^  «  The  true  office  of  Reason  in  respect  to  Revealed  Religion,"  in  which  he  very 
'^^     truculently"^  takes  to  task  my  position,  that  "  reason  and  religion  must  be  con- 
sistent with  each  other,"  he  remarks ;— The  statement  made  by  Prof.  Bush  and 


AA-tfufe  a^it.  c  ■  ^  ■■  ■    .  .V  '. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


21 


others  who  have  writteu  as  vaguely  on  the  subject,  neither  makes  nor  allows 
any  distinction  between  the  principles  of  reason  (so  called),  which  any  man  in 
particular  may  adopt,  and  the  principles  of  right  reason,  such  as  God  both  recog- 
nizes and  appeals  to  in  his  word :  and  hence  every  man  is  left  to  infer  that  the 
deductions  of  his  own  philosophy  (however  distorted  by  his  education  or  his 
prejudices),  are  legitimate,  and  that  the  announcements  of  revelation  ought  to  be 
so  explained  as  to  harmonize  with  them."  Again,  "  It  is  not  to  be  forgotten 
thai  there  is  the  same  distinction  to  be  observed  between  Prof.  Bush's  view  of 
right  reason,  and  right  reason  itself,  as  between  a  man's  view  of  truth,  and  truth 
itself."  Once  more;  "The  Professor  perpetually  confounds  his  own  philosophy 
with  true  philosophy ;  and,  of  course,  leaves  the  privilege  of  doing  the  same  to  every 
man  who  is  satisfied  with  the  legitimacy  of  his  own  deductions."  The  deconun 
and  the  dialectics  are  here  just  about  upon  a  par.  With  a  most  exquisite  assur- 
ance of  infallibility  he  assumes  that  my  reason  must  of  course  be  opposed  to 
right  reason,  and  my  philosophy  to  true  philosophy,  and  why  Does  he  inti- 
mate any  other  ground  of  the  ex  cathedra  sentence  than  that  it  is  opposed  to  his  ? 
And  is  not  his  equally  opposed  to  mine  ?  I  do  not  like  rudely  to  disturb  any 
man's  self-complacency,  but  if  it  may  consist  with  the  deference  due  to  one  who 
speaks  so  oracularly,  I  would  fain  inquire  whence  he  obtained  the  authority  to 
speak  thus  as  the  inspired  organ  of  the  only  "  right  reason"  and  the  only  "  true 
philosophy  ?"  By  what  tokens  am  I  to  know  that  he  is  indeed  invested  with 
this  high  prerogative  ?  So  lofty  a  claim  needs  to  be  made  out  by  some  adequate 
credentials.  I  should  imagine,  indeed,  that  he  was  not  at  all  aware  that  there 
was  any  room  for  preferring  the  question,  yet  it  does  really  seem  a  little  question- 
able how  one  can  affirm,  in  one  breath,  that  "  man's  reason  has  been  bruised, 
and  weakened,  and  defaced,  and  gi'eatly  obliterated  by  the  fall,"  and  yet  in  the 
next,  under  the  auspices  of  this  very  reason,  thus  bruised,  battered  and  broken, 
take  it  upon  him  to  sit  peremptorily  in  judgment  on  the  opinions  of  another  and 
condemn  them  as  undoubtedly  irrational  and  absurd.  Is  there  not  at  least  a 
bare  possibility,  that  the  deteriorating  effects  of  the  fall  may  have  left  some 
traces  of  fallibility  upon  his  reason,  as  well  as  upon  that  of  those  who  differ  from 
him?  May  we  not,  at  any  rate,  deferentially  solicit  some  evidence  that  he  is 
commissioned  to  speak  ex  officio  in  the  name  of  whatever  "  right  reason"  and 
"  true  philosophy"  may  be  found  in  the  universe  ?  Is  it  at  all  mal  apropos  to  ap- 
ply to  a  critic  of  this  stamp  the  language  of  Jeremy  Taylor — "  When  a  man 
speaks  reason,  it  is  but  reason  that  he  should  be  heard ;  but  though  he  may  have 
the  good  fortune,  or  great  abilities  to  do  it,  yet  he  hath  not  a  certainty,  no  regular 
infallible  assistance,  no  inspiration  of  arguments  or  deductions ;  and  if  he  had, 
yet  because  it  must  be  reason  that  must  judge  of  reason,  unless  other  men's  un- 
derstanding were  of  the  same  area,  the  same  constitution  and  ability,  they  can- 
not  be  prescribed  unto  by  another  man's  reason."    {Lib.  of  Proph.  p.  146.) 

I  can  scarcely  doubt  that  you,  my  dear  sir,  will  agree  with  me  that  nothing  is 
more  supremely  ridiculous  than  such  an  "  'Ercles'  vein"  of  dogmatism  in  any 
one  who  has  not  received  letters-patent  of  infallibility  from  the  Divine  fountain- 
head  of  truth.  What  right  has  an  erring  mortal  to  assume  a  tone  implying  that 
he  is  in  possession  of  the  true  key  of  wisdom,  while  I  am  merely  gropmg  and 
fumbling  at  the  door  with  no  means  of  opening  it .'  With  the  same  interests  at 
stake — with  the  same  honesty  of  purpose — with  the  same  advantages  for  in- 


22 


REPLY  TO  DR  WOODS. 


quiry — what  authority  has  he  for  intimating  that  the  results  of  my  investigation 
are  less  in  accordance  with  "  right  reason"  than  his  own  ?  If  he  shall  prove,  by 
satisfactory  arguments,  that  my  conclusions  are  unsound,  then  let  him  "  glory 
over"  my  fallacies ;  but  let  him  not  assume  in  the  outset,  by  virtue  of  some  extra- 
ordinary illumination,  that  my  reason  and  philosophy  are  of  course  at  fault, 
when  he  can  give  no  better  grounds  for  the  sentence  than  that  they  happen  to 
differ  from  his.  It  will  be  observed,  moreover,  that  he  speaks  with  a  kind  of 
holy  horror  of  the  inevitable  consequence  of  my  position,  viz.  that  it  leaves 
to  every  man  the  privilege  of  regarding  his  philosophy  as  true  philosophy,  pro- 
vided only  he  is  satisfied  in  his  own  mind  that  he  has  legitimate  grounds  for 
doing  so.  This  is  indeed  a  fearful  issue,  for  it  sweeps  away  at  a  single  stroke  the 
whole  fabric  of  an  authoritative  tribunal  appointed  to  hold  in  abeyance  the 
right  of  free  opinion — or,  in  other  words,  the  entire  system  of  Protestant 
popery,  and  reduces  everything  to  the  standard  of  private  judgment.  I  shall 
leave  the  gentleman  to  mourn  over  the  wreck  of  such  a  darling  institute,  and  re- 
turn to  the  consideration  of  your  reasoning. 

You  remark,  in  the  present  connection,  that  "  in  judging  of  moral  and  religious 
subjects,  human  reason  itself  does,  in  very  many  cases,  need  a  standard  or  guide. 
In  other  words,  the  rational  being,  man,  is,  in  many  cases,  incompetent  to  deter- 
mine what  is  truth,  without  being  instructed  by  a  wisdom  superior  to  his  own. 
If  we  are  consistent  Christians,  we  believe  that  we  have  been  thus  instructed; 
and  we  have  settled  it  in  our  minds,  that  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment are  the  word  of  God,  clothed  with  divine  authority,  and  are  the  only  sure  and  in- 
fallible rule  of  our  faith  and  practice.  This  has  become  a  fundamental  principle 
with  us.  On  the  ground  of  clear  and  sufficient  evidence  we  receive  it  and  rest 
upon  it,  and  we  can  no  longer  call  it  in  question." 

I  perceive  in  all  this  an  elemental  truth  which  I  am  very  happy  to  acknowl- 
edge. The  receivers  of  Swedenborg  insist  as  strongly  as  any  class  of  men  upon 
the  need  of  divine  illumination  in  order  to  the  due  exercise  of  the  rational  fac- 
ility, especially  upon  all  moral  and  spiritual  subjects.  They  hold  that  the  light 
of  the  Word  is  indispensable  to  the  understanding  when  dealing  with  the  Word 
itself  in  its  interior  import,  and  they  trust  that  the  use  of  the  term  "  influx"  in  this 
relation  may  not  be  deenjed  to  derogate  from  the  essential  truth  of  the  admission. 
Still  they  would  perhaps  be  disposed  to  hint  at  some  difficulties  pertaining  to 
the  above  intimation.  To  myself,  at  any  rate,  it  is  far  from  being  clear  in  what 
light  you  would  have  the  above  position  viewed.  I  obtain  no  clew  to  determine 
how  much  is  included  in  this  settled  conviction  of  the  divinity  and  authority  of 
the  Sacred  Scriptures,  which  you  make  to  depend  on  a  special  illumination  or 
"  instruction"  imparted  to  "  consistent  Christians"  by  a  "  wisdom  superior  to 
their  own  ;"  for  you  say,  "  our  reason  and  our  philosophy,  instead  of  attempting 
to  be  a  guide  to  the  word  of  God,  must  be  guided  by  it."  Would  you  imply  that 
no  man  whatever  can  attain  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
are  the  Word  of  God  without  the  special  enlightening  influences  of  the  Holy 
Spirit — or,  in  other  words,  that  every  one  who  reaches  this  conviction  is  ipso 
facto  a  Christian Is  then  the  distinction  of  a  mere  spemlative  and  a  vital  and 
saving  faith  wholly  groundless Is  it  not  incessantly  taught  in  all  the  pulpits  of 
Christendom,  and  professedly  from  the  Scriptures  themselves,  that  such  a  spec- 
ulative belief  may  exist  in  unregenerate  men  and  that  too  in  conjunction  with  a 


i 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


23 


worldly  and  sensual  life  ?  This  surely  cannot  be  your  meaning,  for  in  this  sense 
you  will  hardly  deny  that  even  a  "  Swedenborgian"  may  arrive  at  a  tolerably 
clear  assurance  that  the  Bible  contains  a  real  revelation  from  God  to  man.  You 
must  have  reference  to  some  higher  degree  of  the  divine  operation  on  the  minds 
of  men,  and  yet  I  am  at  a  loss  to  conceive  what  it  is  or  what  is  the  precise  effect 
you  would  ascribe  to  it.  Indeed  I  see  not  why  I  may  not  avail  myself  of  the 
very  objection  which  you  yourself  urge  on  a  subsequent  page  against  what  you 
intimate  as  the  ground  assumed  in  behalf  of  Swedenborg's  claims.  "  As  the  ap- 
peal is  to  be  made  to  reason,  and  reference  to  be  had  solely  to  the  intrinsic  rea- 
sonableness and  excellence  of  Swedenborg's  writings ;  then,  of  course,  we  are 
not  to  be  influenced  by  the  authority  which  he  claims  as  a  divinely  commis- 
sioned interpreter  of  the  Scriptures.  If,  however,  the  reason  to  which  the  ap- 
peal is  to  be  made  means  the  illuminated  reason  of  the  man  of  the  New  Church  ; 
then  the  reason  of  others  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter,  and  the  ques- 
tion would  be,  why  any  others  are  called  upon  to  judge."  Now  I  am  wholly 
unable  to  see  why  your  own  position  is  not  equally  assailable  upon  precisely 
the  same  grounds.  You  claim  to  have  been  led,  by  an  "  illuminated  reason," 
to  the  understanding  of  the  true  system  of  revealed  doctrine,  and  from  this  emi- 
nence of  attainment  do  not  scruple  to  pass  sentence  upon  the  system  of  Swe- 
denborg  as  directly  at  variance  with  the  genuine  teachings  of  the  Scriptures. 
But  how  can  you  arraign  the  decisions  of  my  reason  when  left  destitute  of  the 
supernatural  aids  accorded  to  yours  ?  Indeed,  what  can  my  reason  "  have  to 
do  with  the  matter .'"  Why  am  I  "  called  upon  to  judge"  at  all It  would  seem 
that  you  had  fired  a  petrel  without  thinking  of  the  dangerous  recoil.  But  per- 
haps you  design  to  say  that  the  spirit  of  God  directly  informs  a "  consistent 
Christian"  as  to  the  canonical  authority  of  the  different  sacred  books.  Is  this 
your  meaning You  are  well  aware  that  the  settlement  of  the  question  respect- 
ing the  canon  has  ever  been  the  great  problem  of  biblical  theology,  and  that  even 
to  this  day  learned  and  good  men  demur  as  to  the  claims  of  several  books  of  the 
Bible  to  the  character  of  inspiration.  Am  I  to  understand  from  your  language, 
that  the  determination  of  this  question  forms  a  part  of  Christian  experience .' 
The  pious  Baxter  assures  us  that  this  was  not  the  case  with  him.  "  For  my^  ^  . 
part,  I  could  never  boast  of  any  such  testimony,  or  light  of  the  spirit,  nor  reason 
neither,  which,  without  human  testimony,  would  have  made  me  believe,  that  the 
book  of  Canticles  is  canonical,  and  written  by  Solomon,  and  the  book  of  Wisdom 
apocryphal,  and  written  by  Philo.  Nor  would  I  have  known  all  or  any  histori- 
cal books,  such  as  Joshua,  Judges,  Ruth,  Samuel,  Kings,  Chronicles,  Ezraj  Nehe- 
piah,  &c.  to  be  written  by  Divine  inspiration,  but  by  tradition."^  If  this  is  amongj  • 
the  things  taught  by  special  illumination  to  all  Christians,  why  are  they  still  at 
variance  on  the  subject Is  it  not  a  point  of  vital  moment  to  the  interests  of 
revelation 

But  you  will  perhaps  say — and  I  do  not  see  what  else  you  can  say — that  the 
effect  of  this  supernatural  teaching,  which  is  the  privilege  of  "  consistent  Chris- 
tians," is  to  impart  to  them  a  correct  knowledge  of  the  genuine  scheme  of  doc- 
trines contained  in  the  Scriptures,  in  contradistinction  from  all  the  erroneous,  fal- 
lacious, and  heretical  systems  which  are  professedly  deduced  from  the  same 
source.  But  here  again  we  encounter  the  most  serious  difficulty  in  reconciling 
this  hypothesis  with  the  actual  facts  of  the  case.   If  all  "  consistent  Christians" 


24 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


are  led  by  special  illumination  or  "  instruction"  to  adopt  a  peculiar  view  of  the 
doctrinal  code  of  the  Scriptures,  and  this  illumination  really  proceeds  from  the 
divine  Original  of  Truth,  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  conceive  how  it  should 
instruct  one  class  of  Christians  to  draw  from  this  source  a  form  of  doctrines 
directly  at  variance  with  that  drawn  by  another.  Yet  nothing  is  more  palpable 
than  the  fact,  that  the  most  dissonant  schemes  of  religious  faith  are  alleged  by 
the  different  sects  of  Christendom  as  each  the  veritable  system  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  each  the  product  of  a  divine  illumination  shed  upon  the  minds  of  its  advo- 
cates. 

You  can  scarcely  fail,  I  thinlv,  to  appreciate  the  difficulty  and  embarrassment 
in  which  I  find  myself  involved  in  the  attempt  to  put  a  consistent  interpretation 
upon  your  language.  I  do  not  apprehend  what  you  would  claim  as  to  the  na- 
ture or  extent  of  that  divine  "  instruction"  which  you  represent  as  something 
over  and  above  the  mere  light  of  natural  reason  in  fixing  an  assurance  in  the 
minds  of  Christians  as  to  the  origin  and  authority  of  the  inspired  writings.  If 
this  "  instruction"  or  illumination  is  genuine,  its  truth  must  be  self-evidencing, 
and  if  so,  it  must  be,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  infallible.  How  then  can  the  inference 
be  resisted,  that  you  assume  a  certain  construction  of  the  divine  oracles  to  be 
infallibly  correct,  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other  that  differs  from  it But  how 
is  this  infallibility  to  be  proved  to  my  satisfaction Suppose  that  I  should  assert 
a  claim  to  an  equal  assurance  of  truth,  and  one  derived  too  from  precisely  the 
same  source,  on  what  grounds  will  you  contest  the  claim  and  reject  my  belief 
as  heretical  and  false  Have  you  any  other  standard  of  appeal  than  the  Scrip- 
tures themselves "  But  we  are  instructed  by  a  wisdom  superior  to  our  own" 
as  to  the  genuine  sense  of  the  inspired  Word  and  therefore  all  doubt  is  precluded. 
It  would  seem  inevitable,  therefore,  that  the  reliance  here  is  upon  something 
more  than  reason,  and  yet  immediately  after  you  remark,  that  this  fundamental 
principle  of  the  Scriptures  being  the  word  of  God  is  "  received  by  tlie  reason  on 
the  ground  of  clear  and  sufficient  evidence."  If  by  this  you  mean  reason  actmg 
simply  by  its  native,  unassisted  light  on  the  evidences  of  Christianity  con- 
sidered as  a  point  of  mere  intellectual  mquiry,  I  discover  nothing  in  the  position 
which  gives  you  any  peculiar  advantage  in  wielding  the  argument  against  us, 
for  we  are  as  well  assured  on  this  head,  from  the  dictates  of  reason,  as  you  can 
possibly  be.  If  on  the  other  hand  you  claim  the  prerogative  of  a  divinely  enlight- 
ened reason  in  coming  to  your  conclusions  respecting  the  true  system  of  Christian 
doctrine,  then,  in  order  to  make  your  position  controversially  available,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  authenticate  this  claim  by  some  adequate  evidence,  since  we  plead 
the  same  prerogative  in  support  of  a  very  different  system. 

You  go  on  to  say ; — "  Now  this  word  of  God  has  taught  us  a  system  of  moral 
and  religious  truths,  which  we  can  no  more  doubt  than  we  can  the  veracity  of 
God."  Has  taught  whom  In  whose  name  do  you  here  speak.'  Do  you  refer 
to  Christians  in  general — all  those  who  receive  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  as  the  word  of  God But  these  constitute  a  variety  of  sects  of 
very  differing  views,  and  it  is  certam  that  they  do  not  all  of  them  deduce  the 
same  "  system  of  moral  and  religious  truths"  from  the  same  Scriptures,  and  yet  it 
is  probable  that  they  are  all  equally  confident,  and  no  more  doubt  the  truth  of 
their  respective  systems  than  they  doubt  of  the  veracity  of  God,  which  in  fact 
they  usually  identify  with  the  verity  of  their  own  system,    hi  this  general  body 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


25 


of  Christians,  the  receivers  of  Swedenborg  claim  a  place,  and  they  too  have  equal 
confidence  in  the  soundness  of  the  system  which  they  derive  from  the  sacred 
oracles.  But  you  proceed ; — "  When  therefore  we  undertake  to  form  a  judg- 
ment as  to  the  truth  of  another  system,  how  strange  would  it  be,  if  we  should 
divest  our  reason  of  the  benefit  of  its  settled  convictions  ?  With  what  ingratitude 
and  ^oerverseness  should  we  be  chargeable,  if  we  should  extinguish  or  under- 
value the  light  which  shines  upon  us  from  revelation,  and  go  back  to  the  dark- 
ness of  deism  and  heathenism .'"  What  is  implied  in  this  What  would  you 
have  the  reader  understand  by  "  forming  a  judgment  as  to  the  truth  of  another 
system  ?"  Is  not  the  system  of  Swedenborg  avowedly  a  Christian  system  ?  How 
then  is  it  "  another .'"  And  how  is  it  necessary  to  "  go  back  to  the  darkness  of 
deism  and  heathenism"  in  order  to  adjudicate  its  claims?  Do  you  regard  the 
system  of  Swedenborg  as  coming  before  the  world  in  the  character  of  an  antag- 
onist system  to  Christianity,  and  to  beplaced  upon  a  par  with  Deism,  Mahomet- 
anism,  or  Budhism The  whole  train  of  your  remark  confounds  me  beyond 
measure.  The  controversy  between  you  and  Swedenborg  is  not  one  that  in- 
volves the  question  of  a  divine  revelation  having  been  granted  to  man,  or  of 
this  revelation  being  comprised  within  the  contents  of  the  Christian  Scriptures. 
Jt  is  in  fact  the  question  of  the  sense  of  the  revelation.-  Now  you  may  be  fully 
assured  that  the  sense  you  ascribe  to  it  is  the  true  sense.  I  am  equally  assured 
that  the  sense  I  put  upon  it  is  the  correct  one.  Who  shall  decide  between  us  ? 
What  can  authorize  the  condemnation  of  my  view  of  the  meaning  of  the  word 
of  God,  but  a  conscious  infallibilitij  of  judgment This  you  certainly  will  not 
claim.  To  what  then  amounts  the  assumption  of  having  been  taught  "  a  system 
of  moral  and  religious  truths  about  which  there  can  be  no  more  doubt  than  there 
is  as  to  the  veracity  of  God."  I  lay  the  same  claim  to  this  that  you  do.  And  so 
as  to  the  scope  of  the  following  sentence ; — "  If  we  would  maintain  the  character 
of  Christians,  we  must  use  our  reason,  as  enlightened  by  revelation."  Assuredly ; 
and  do  the  teachings  of  Swedenborg  breathe  the  slightest  aura  of  a  contrary  sen- 
timent ?  Have  you  ever  met,  in  the  writings  of  his  adherents,  a  single  expression 
implying  an  underestimate  of  the  value  of  revelation  as  a  guide  to  human  rea- 
son Is  it  not  their  unanimous  aim  to  call  all  men  to  the  deep  and  hearty  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  Divine  Word  as  the  grand  source  of  intellectual  and  rational 
light.'  Why  then  is  an  adverse  argument  so  constructed  as  to  convey  the  im- 
pression that  our  views  are  not  only  nnscriptural,  hnt  anti- scriptural!  Why  is 
the  reader  led  to  infer  that  our  doctrines  can  only  be  met  on  the  ground  on 
which  the  Christian  apologist  meets  the  deist  and  the  heathen "  Our  great 
inquiry,"  you  say, "  must  be,  whether  the  disclosures  of  Swedenborg  are  in  harmony  with 
the  Scriptures."  This  as  understood  from  the  letter,  I  readily  admit  to  be  the  true 
point  of  inquiry,  but  the  meaning  when  unlocked  by  the  key  of  the  previous  re- 
mark is,  whether  the  disclosures  of  Swedenborg  are  in  harmony  with  a  certain 
scheme  of  scripture  interpretation.  But  suppose  it  to  be,  whether  they  are  consist- 
ent with  any  interpretation — whether  they  are  not  directly  at  variance  with  the 
Scriptures,  as  really  as  the  Koran  or  the  Shasters — still  the  insinuation,  in  either 
case,  can  come  properly  only  from  one  who  is  infallibly  in  the  possession  of  the 
true  scheme  of  revealed  doctrine,  and  we  sliall  listen  with  due  respect  to  the 
oracle  when  assured  of  its  source.  In  the  mean  time  we  venture  to  claim  a  title 
to  the  character  of  full  believers  in  a  divine  revelation,  and  to  "  have  been  taught 


26 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


from  it  a  system  of  moral  and  religious  truths,  which  we  can  no  more  doubt 
than  we  can  the  veracity  of  God."  If  the  Christian  plants  himself  upon  his 
prerogatives,  as  the  Jew  did  in  his  controversy  with  Paul,  Ave  say  as  he  did, 
"  What  advantage  then  hath  the  Christian  ?"  And  if  he  allowed  the  Jews  much, 
on  the  score  of  the  "  oracles  of  God  being  committed  to  them,"  we  claim  our 
share  in  the  general  boon.    Are  not  we  Christians  as  well  as  they  ? 

But  we  are  soon  brought  to  "  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter."  The 
foregoing  train  of  reasoning  is  merely  the  throwing  out  of  a  kind  of  logical  lasso 
by  which  we  are  to  be  entangled  and  brought  up  to  the  confession  of  a  flat  de- 
nial of  the  canonical  authority  of  a  portion  of  "  the  word  of  God." 

"  But  here,  at  the  outset,  we  are  met  with  an  appalling  fact,  namely,  that  Swe- 
denborg  excludes  from  the  word  of  God  a  considerable  part  of  what  we  regard  as 
the  holy  Scriptures.  It  is,  in  my  view,  too  plain  to  be  doubted,  that  Christ  and  the 
Apostles  acknowledged  the  very  books,  and  all  the  books,  which  now  compose 
the  Old  Testament,  to  be  the  word  of  God,  and  regarded  the  whole  and  every  part 
of  them,  as  of  divine  authority.  Any  one  who  wishes  to  see  this  proved  clearly 
and  conclusively,  would  do  well  to  examine  the  various  treatises  which  relate  to 
the  subject,  particularly  the  recent  publication  of  Professor  Stuart  on  the  canon 
of  the  Old  Testament.  Our  Author,  then,  by  rejecting  a  part  of  the  books,  which 
were  received  by  Christ  and  the  Apostles,  and  which  have  always  been  received, 
by  Jews  and  Christians,  as  the  word  of  God,  sets  himself  not  only  above  the 
inspired  Apostles,  but  in  opposition  to  Christ  himself,  to  whom  God  gave  the 
Spirit  without  measure,  and  who  came  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth.  What  shall 
we  say  to  these  things .'  Were  the  holy  Apostles  mistaken  in  regard  to  the  books 
which  belong  to  the  word  of  God  Was  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God, 
full  of  grace  and  truth, — was  he  mistaken.'  Must  it  not  be  a  disordered  state  of 
mind  that  can  lead  any  man  to  entertain  such  an  opinion The  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  which  Swedenborg  refused  to  acknowledge  as  making  a  part  of  </je 
word  of  God,  are  the  following,  namely  ;  the  two  books  of  Chronicles,  Ezra,  Nehe- 
miah,  Esther,  Job,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  and  Solomon's  Song ;  about  one  sixth_paH 
of  the  Old  Testament  ^ — and  of  the  New  Testament ;  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  all 
the  Epistles  of  Paul,  including  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  and  the  Episdes  of  Peter, 
James,  John  and  Jude ;  that  is,  about  half  of  the  Neiv  Testament.  Swedenborg 
says, '  the  books  of  the  Word  are  all  those  which  have  the  internal  sense.'  Of 
course,  those  which  he  disowns,  are  those  which  have  not  the  internal  sense.  I 
know  not  by  what  means  he  determined  which  of  the  sacred  books  have  the 
internal  sense,  and  which  have  it  not.  But  in  some  way  he  found  out,  or  was 
led  to  think,  that  the  books  above  named  did  not  readily  admit  of  such  a  sense, 
as  his  scheme  of  interpretation  required.  It  seems  quite  luiaccountable,  that  he 
should  have  excepted  some  of  these  books,  rather  than  some  which  he  received. 
I  do  not,  indeed,  think  it  strange,  that  he  found  most  of  these  books,  particularly 
the  Proverbs,  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  the  Epistles,  somewhat  intractable, 
and  hard  to  be  interpreted  according  to  his  principles.  But  it  would  have  been 
natural  to  expect,  that,  when  writing  on  the  subject  of  conjugial  love,  whether 
in  the  natural  or  spiritual  sense,  he  would  make  the  Song  of  Solomon  his  Text- 
book. 

"  Can  it  now  be  expected  of  us,  that  we  should  fall  in  with  a  writer,  who  re- 

Iects  so  great  a  portion  of  what  we  verily  believe  to  be  the  word  of  God  7  If  we 
lave  confidence  in  Clirist  as  an  infallible  Teacher,  can  we  submit  to  the  author- 
ity of  one,  who,  in  our  opinion,  takes  a  i^osition  in  opposition  to  him  .'  If  we 
are  consistent  Christians,  can  we  reject  or  undervalue  the  writings  of  those 
whom  Christ  commissioned  to  teach  in  his  name,  to  whom  he  promised  the 
Holy  Spirit  to  guide  them  into  all  the  truth,  and  who  claimed  to  have  their  in- 
structions received  as  the  word  of  God  The  leading  doctrines  of  the  gospel, 
as  commonly  understood  by  Christians,  are  set  forth  most  clearly  and  fully  in  the 
Epistles.  Swedenborg  disbelieved  tliese  doctrines ;  and  this  may  have  been  a 
reason  with  him  for  rejecting  the  Epistles.  But  can  it  be  expected  of  us,  that 
we  should  renounce  the  fundameiUal  articles  of  our  faith,  and  those  sacred 
books,  which  most  definitely  teach  them,  and  yield  ourselves  to  another  in- 
structor and  follow  another  guide  V'—p.  16-19. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


27 


The  objection  here  urged  has  often  been  replied  to,  and  I  have  considered  it 
at  length  in  my  "  Statement  of  Reasons  for  embracing  the  Doctrines  and  Disclo- 
sures of  Swedenborg."  I  there  put  it  upon  the  ground  which  you  have  designat- 
ed in  the  following  paragraph,  as  to  which  you  will  permit  me  to  say,  that  it 
has  not  exactly  the  air  of  justice  to  bring  an  unequivocal  and  unqualified  charge, 
and  then  to  exhibit  it  in  that  modified  form  in  which  only  we  admit  its  truth.  If 
Swedenborg  does  not  absolutely  reject,  disown,  and  exclude  certain  books  from 
the  Canon,  such  a  charge  ought  not  to  be  absolutely  made  at  the  outset.  You 
may,  indeed,  hold  that  what  he  does  teach  on  the  subject  leads  by  legitimate 
consequence  to  such  a  sentence  of  rejection,  but  as  this  is  not  admitted  on  the  part 
of  your  opponents,  I  think  your  conclusion  should  have  been  stated  at  the  close, 
and  not  in  an  absolute  form  at  the  commencement  of  the  process  by  which  you 
would  establish  it.    But  I  give  our  answer  in  your  words. 

"  It  may  possibly  be  said,  that  Swedenborg  did  not  absolutely  reject  the  parts 
of  Scripture  above  named,  but  only  gave  them  a  lower  place,  and  invested  them 
with  a  lower  authority,  than  belongs  to  the  word  of  God. — p.  19. 

This  may  not  only  "  possibly"  be  said,  but  it  is  positively,  and  unequivocally,  and 
invariably  sak],  and  the  true  and  only  point  of  debate  is,  whether  it  is  said  on 
good  grounds.  This  point  is  fairly  first  to  be  settled  before  he  can  be  absolutely 
charged  with  rejecting  certain  portions  of  the  Scriptures,  for  it  is  at  least  possi- 
ble, that  the  distinction  which  he  affirms  may  still  consist  with  the  retaining  of 
the  present  constitution  of  the  canon  undisturbed.  This,  at  any  rate,  is  the  po- 
sition assumed  by  those  who  adopt  his  system.  But  you  ask  on  what  grounds 
he  made  the  distinction. 

"  Why  did  he  receive  the  book  of  the  Judges,  or  of  the  Kings,  as  the  word  of  God 
more  than  the  Chronicles,  or  Ezra,  or  Nehemiah Why  the  gospel  of  Luke, 
more  than  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  which  is  only  a  continuation  of  the  Christian 
History  by  the  same  writer.'  Why  the  Revelation  of  John,  more  than  the  Epistles 
of  John  And  why  any  of  the  writings  of  John,  more  than  those  of  the  other 
Apostles  7  And  then  as  to  Swedenborg's  test ;  who  can  find  out  why  the  rejected 
books  do  not  admit  of  the  inner  or  spiritual  sense,  as  naturally  and  easily  as  the 
other  books  of  Scripture It  will  perhaps  be  said,  that  he  did  not  propose  to 
exclude  the  disowned  books  from  the  printed  volume  of  the  Scriptures,  or  to 
make  a  new  Bible.  It  may  be  that  he  did  not  distinctly  propose  this.  It  may 
be  that  he  was  willing  the  Apostolic  Epistles  and  the  other  degraded  books, 
should  continue  for  a  time  to  be  bound  up  with  the  word  of  God,  as  our  Protest- 
ant forefathers  were  willing  that  the  Apocryphal  books  should  be  bound  up 
with  the  Holy  Scriptures.  But  our  forefathers  were  honest  men,  and  took  care 
to  give  a  distinctive  name  to  those  books,  showing  that  they  were  not  regarded  as 
belonging  to  the  canon  of  Scripture.  They  designated  them  as  the  Apocrypha. 
Now  Swedenborgians  ought  to  be  equally  honest,  and  at  the  beginning  of  their 
Bible,  they  ought  to  give  an  exact  list  of  the  books  constituting  the  word  of  God, 
as  Genesis,  Exodus,  &c.,  and  after  that  a  list  of  books  of  a  lower  character,  not 
con.stituting  any  part  of  the  word  of  God,  and  not  possessed  of  plenary  divine 
authority,  such  as  Chronicles,  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  &c.,  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  Acts, 
Romans,  and  all  the  Epistles  in  the  New  Testament.  Let  this  table  be  honest,  and 
show  just  Avhat  Swedenborg  meant.  And  by  and  by,  when  the  New  Jerusalem 
church  becomes  large  enough  to  have  a  Bible  society  of  their  own,  let  them 
omit  altogether  those  books  which  do  not  belong  to  the  word  of  God,  and  so 
make  their  Bible  smaller  and  cheaper ;  unless  they  choose  to  supply  the  place 
of  the  excluded  books  by  some  of  the  revelations  of  their  Prophet. — But  why 
should  I  say,  some  of  his  revelations  ?  If  his  claims  are  founded  in  truth,  all  his 
revelations  are,  in  the  highest  sense,  from  God,  and  ought  to  be  published  and 
circulated,  as  constituting  apart,  yea,  the  greater  part  of  the  Holy  Scriptures."  — 
p.i9. 


28 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


With  all  New  Churchmen  I  may  say,  that  the  first  and  paramount  question,  in 
regard  to  Swedenborg,  is  the  question  of  his  supernatural  enlightenment,  or  of 
his  intromission  into  the  world  of  spirits.  They  require  to  be  positively  satis- 
fied on  this  head  at  the  outset,  but  when  satisfied  here,  they  have  very  litde  diffi- 
culty with  anything  that  follows,  resting  upon  his  assertion  as  to  the  results 
of  the  peculiar  state  into  which  he  was  brought.  For  a  very  full  and  undoubt- 
ing  reliance  on  the  truth  of  his  statements,  they  find  an  ample  warrant  in  the 
nature  of  the  case.  They  see  that  a  supernatural,  i.  e.,  a  pivme,  influence,  ope- 
rating upon  his  spirit  is  the  very  essence  of  his  claim.  They  are  convinced  that 
such  an  illumination  as  he  asserts  in  regard  to  himself  transcends  everything 
short  of  a  direct  and  immediate  putting  forth  of  the  Divine  power  to  efTect  it. 
They  see  clearly  that  they  must  admit  this,  if  they  admit  anything.  If  then  such 
a  privilege  was  conferred  upon  him  by  the  Most  High  himself,  it  is  equally  ob- 
vious to  their  minds  that  it  must  have  been  for  an  end  worthy  ihe  source  from 
which  it  flowed.  But  they  cannot  conceive  it  as  by  any  means  consistent  with 
such  an  end,  to  have  allowed  the  mLxing  of  error  with  truth  in  the  revelations 
granted,  as  this  would  be  to  defeat  the  effect  of  the  truth.  They  are  persuaded, 
therefore,  that  they  are  authorized  to  repose  implicit  confidence  m  what- 
ever averments  he  may  make  in  regard  to  the  laws  and  phenomena  of  the  other 
life,  and  especially  as  to  the  nature  and  constituents  of  the  Sacred  Word,  which 
depend  direcdy  on  those  laws.  If  upon  these  points  he  was  instructed  from  a 
supernatural  source,  they  feel  no  hesitation  to  receive  his  information  as  authen- 
tic and  true  in  the  highest  degree.  Tliis  is  their  mode  of  reasoning  on  the 
subject,  and  they  are  unable  to  see  wherein  it  is  defective.  The  whole  matter 
resolves  itself  into  the  question  of  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  the  main  assump- 
tion, i.  e.  whether  he  was  actually,  as  he  affirms,  translated  in  spirit  mto  the  spi- 
ritual sphere.  But  this  question  is  settled  to  their  minds  by  the  force  of  the  evi- 
dence adduced,  which  the  nature  of  my  present  object  does  not  require  me  to 
recite.  I  can  only  refer  those  who  would  weigh  it,  to  the  body  of  his  works,  and 
the  various  Appeals  and  Apologies  which  have  been  put  forth  by  his  advocates. 
My  purpose  is  simply  to  rebut  the  force  of  certain  objections  urged  against  the 
system  in  whole  or  m  part.  It  would  require  a  volume  to  go  over  the  whole 
ground  in  ?t.  ■positive  ioxin  of  discussion. 

Let  it  not  be  thought  however  that  we  deem  ourselves  shut  up  to  an  absolutely 
blind  deference  to  his  authority,  without  the  slightest  perception  of  tlie  intrinsic 
truth  of  what  he  has  said,  or  any  confirmation,  from  other  quarters,  of  the  deci- 
sion he  has  made  relative  to  the  character  and  claims  of  the  different  books  com- 
posing the  present  canon.  We  find,  for  instance,  on  recurring  to  the  Hebrew 
code-x,  that  the  very  books  to  which  he  assigns  a  secondary  rank  are,  for  some 
reason,  thrown  together  at  the  close  of  the  volume  and  reputed  by  the  Jews  as 
having  been  the  product  of  a  lower  degree  of  the  divine  afflatus  than  is  recog- 
nized by  them  in  the  origination  of  the  books  to  which  Swedenborg  assigns  the 
first  place.  How  is  this  to  be  accounted  for .'  Does  it  not  look  as  if  Swedenborg 
had  some  authority,  from  the  ancient  estimate  of  these  writings,  for  the  discrim- 
ination he  has  made  ?  Does  not  the  censure  cast  upon  him,  for  the  liberty  he 
has  taken,  redound  upon  the  Jewish  Church .'  Have  tliey  not  uniformly  made 
in  effect  the  same  distinction  that  he  has  in  regard  to  the  degixe  of  the  supernat- 


1  ■ 
f 


5       /'hey  cy^ctU.  //«  *9  <^  «iC. 


/- 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


ural  influence  exerted  upon  the  minds  of  the  \vriters  of  the  different  books* — dfc^ 
noting  this  distinction  by  ascribing  the  one  class  to  the  indwelling  of  the  She-  ' 
kinah  with  the  writers,  and  the  other  by  that  of  the  Ruach  Haklcodesh  or  Holy  Spirit  ? 

The  truth  is,  there  is  no  subject  in  the  whole  circle  of  biblical  Archaeology  so 
utterly  at  loose  ends  as  this  of  the  canoniciti/  of  the  Scriptures.  It  is  still  the  vexed 
question  of  theologians,  and  no  man  who  has  not  made  it  a  special  point  of  in- 
quiry can  imagine  the  difficulties  by  which  it  is  surrounded  or  the  vagueness  of 
the  principles  on  which  the  determination  both  of  Papists  and  Protestants  rests. 
Scarcely  a  single  author  can  be  named  who  has  treated  the  subject  of  inspira- 
tion in  connection  with  the  psychological  state  of  the  writers  while  inditing) 
the  books,  and  yet  it  is  precisely  here  that  the  pith  of  the  question  lies.  Most 
heartily  therefore  do  I  subscribe  to  the  following  remarks  of  Mr.  Parsons  in  his 
review  of  Dr.  Pond  ; — "  On  what  does  the  canon  of  Scripture  rest,  excepting  the  ' 
opinion  of  a  number  of  learned  men,  opposed  by  the  great  majority  of  the  Chris- 
tian church,  reached  after  much  discussion,  not  to  say  some  angiy  controversy, 
and  resisted  by  many  who  are  recognized  by  the  wliole  Protestant  Church,  as 
eminently  wise  and  good  ?  And  is  this  canon  so  fenced  about  with  sanctity,  as 
to  justify  the  outcry  of  impiety  which  assails  us  Is  this  canon  itself  given  by  in- 
spiration 7  Are  we  the  first,  who  have  doubted  or  denied  its  accuracy  Does  not 
Dr.  Pond  know,  that  precisely  these  questions  have  always  existed  in  the  Christian 
Church,  and  have  often  divided  its  branches  The  impossibility  of  settling  these 
questions,  as  much,  perhaps,  as  any  other  one  point,  broke  off  the  negociations 
between  Leibnitz,  Molinus,  and  Bossuet ;  from  which  all  parties,  at  one  time, 
hoped  to  reunite  the  scattered  members  of  the  church.  The  simple  and  unques- 
tionable facts  are,  that  any  one  may  take  his  Bible  to  be  that  book  which  is  so 
called,  and  ask  no  more;  but  it  is  composed  of  many  books,  and  if  he  goes  a 
single  step  in  the  inquiry,  why  are  just  these  books  received,  and  all  others  rejected  ? 
he  will  find  himself  at  once  surrounded  by  darkness.  No  man,  no  book,  no  fact, 
no  theory,  can  give  any  answer  which  shall  go  beyond  a  probable  conjecture. 
Where,  then,  is  the  justice,  where  the  decency,  of  the  outcry  that  assails  us? 
When  it  is  made  by  the  wholly  uneducated,  we  pass  it  by  in  silence ;  but  when 
it  comes  from  the  Seminary  at  Bangor  (Andover),  we  cannot  but  wish  that  they 
would  not  pursue  their  controversy  in  utter  contempt  of  justice.  Is  it  not  one 
among  the  inestimable  blessings  which  the  Lord  is  now  giving  to  manltind, 
through  His  New  Church,  that  this  great  question  is  now  settled  and  determined 
by  a  fixed  and  definite  standard  It  is  not  the  arbitrary  dictum  of  Swedenborg 
which  decides  this  for  future  ages,  but  the  unerring  test  of  the  science  of  corres-. 
pondence." 

You  will  easily  have  gathered  from  the  above,  the  answers  which  we  return 
to  your  queries.    We  believe,  as  you  intimate,  that  Swedenborg  did  not  "  abso- 

*  "The  Rabbinic  writers  maintain  that  the  authors  of  the  Cctubim  (Hagiogropha) 
enjoyed  only  the  lowest  degree  of  inspiration,  as  they  received  no  immediate  communica- 
tion from  the  Deity,  like  that  made  to  Moses,  to  whom  God  spake  face  to  lace;  and  that 
they  did  not  receive  their  knowledge  through  the  medium  of  visions  and  dreams,  as  was 
the  case  with  the  prophets  or  the  writers  of  the  second  class,  but  still  that  they  felt  the 
Divine  Spirit  resting  on  them,  and  inspiring  them  with  suggestions.  This  is  the  view 
maintained  by  Abarbanel,  Kimchi,  Maimonides,  and  Elias  Levita."  Kitto's  Biblical 
Cyclopedia,  (An.  Hagiografba).  It  is  true  that  the  book  of  Daniel  is  included  by  the 
Jews  in  the  Hagiographa,  to  which  Swedenborg  assigns  a  plenary  inspiration,  but  rea- 
sons may  be  assigned  for  this  which  do  not  affect  the  general  argument. 


30 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


lutely  reject  certain  parts  of  the  Scriptures,  but  only  gave  them  a  lower  place,  and 
invested  them  with  a  lower  authority  than  belongs  to  the  Word  of  God."  We 
believe  that  he  did  this,  because  he  was  qualified  and  authorized  to  do  it,  and 
this  belief  is  founded  on  the  sufficiency,  to  our  minds,  of  the  evidence  he  has 
afforded  to  this  effect  and  this,  we  contend,  is  the  true  question  at  issue.  We 
believe  (hat  the  test  he  has  designated  is  the  true  test,  because  he  has  said  it  is,  and 
as  the  fact  of  an  internal  or  spiritual  sense  in  the  Word,  and  the  principles  on 
which  it  is  developed,  constitute  the  most  important  feature  of  his  disclosures, 
we  cannot  conceive  that  he  should  have  been  liable  to  error  on  this  head.  We 
rely,  therefore,  with  the  utmost  assuramce  on  his  declarations  relative  to  every- 
thing pertaining  to  the  character  of  the  Word.  This  assurance  can  only  be 
shaken  by  an  exposure  of  the  insufficiency  of  the  evidence  of  his  general 
claim.  I  shall  endeavor  to  show,  moreover,  that  the  principles  themselves  have 
an  internal  evidence  of  truth. 

As  to  the  intimation  of  unfairness  in  failing  to  designate  the  distinction  in 
question,  we  hold  that  there  is  no  ground  for  it,  as  he  has  most  unequivocally 
stated  what  books  possess  the  character  of  divinity,  and  what  do  not,  and  we 
think  that  an  invaluable  service  has  been  rendered  to  the  cause  of  truth  by  put- 
ting to  rest  a  question  which  has  agitated  the  chinch  in  all  ages,  and  which  in 
its  present  form,  gives  an  advantage  to  the  Romanist  of  which  the  Protestant 
has  never  been  able  to  deprive  him. 

The  reply  thus  given  to  your  objections  on  this  score  covers  a  wide  field  in 
reference  to  the  contents  of  your  work,  and  will  preclude  the  necessity  of  a  spe- 
cific consideration  of  various  items  of  similar  tenor  occurring  throughout  the 
volume.  I  meet  them  by  the  general  assertion,  that  the  evidence  which  satisfies 
us  of  Svvedenborg's  illumination  at  all,  satisfies  us  of  it  also  in  respect  to  all  that 
he  has  said  on  this  subject.  If  this  evidence  is  inconclusive,  we  beg  it  may  be 
shown  in  what  respects. 

I  shall  go  still  more  largely  into  the  scriptural  subject  on  a  subsequent  page, 
but  m  the  present  connection  I  will  not  expose  myself  to  the  charge  of  declining 
to  meet  the  brunt  of  a  formidable  objection  arrayed  in  the  following  paragraph. 

"  No  concession  or  declaration  of  the  disciples  of  Swedenborg,  that  the  exclu- 
ded books  of  Scripture  have  or  may  have  some  inferior  kind  of  inspiration,  can 
give  any  satisfaction  to  those,  who  believe,  with  Paul,  that '  all  Scripture  is  given 
by  uispiration  of  Godf  and,  consequently,  that  all  Scripture  without  exception, 
is  th-e  word  of  God.  What  is  that  inspiration  worth,  which  is  not  from  God,  and 
which  does  not  invest  what  is  inspired  wiih  full  divine  authority Whatever  is 
not  the  word  of  God,  is  the  word  of  man." — p.  20. 

If  I  were  disposed  to  be  severely  critical  and  stand  upon  the  minutia:  of  con- 
troversial fairness,  I  should  scarcely  refrain  from  a  passing  stricture  upon  the 
phrase,  "  excluded  books  of  Scripture,"  for  which  I  recognize  no  authority  in 
anything  that  Swedenborg  has  said  on  the  subject.  He  neither  excludes  from 
their  place,  nor  detrudef  from  their  rank,  any  of  the  biblical  writings.  He  grants 
to  all  the  books  of  Scripture  all  the  inspiration  which  is  ordinarily  ascribed  to 
them,  while  for  some  he  challenges  an  incomparably  higher  character,  in  this 
respect,  than  has  ever  before  been  thought  to  be  predicable  of  them.  And 
this  he  does  because  such  he  learned  iu  the  spiritual  world  to  be  the  trutli.  But 
in  doing  it  he  is  unjustly  thought  to  take  away  from  one  portion  what  he  gives 
to  anotlier. 


r 

I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


31 


Again,  the  reader  would  be  apt,  without  farther  instruction,  to  infer  that  yoU' 
considered  the  sentence  of  Paul  to  include  the  whole  body  of  biblical  writings, 
instead  of  those  only  which  constitute  the  Old  Testament.  But  the  defect  of 
discrimination  here  may  fortunately  be  sui^plied  from  your  own  work  on  "  Inspira- 
tion" published  some  years  ago.  "  I  here  take  for  granted,  what  has  often  been 
satisfactorily  proved,  that  when  Paul  speaks  of  all  Scripture,  he  must  be  under- 
stood to  mean  all  the  writings  which  were  held  sacred  by  the  Jews  at  that  time ; 
aad  that  those  writings  were  the  same  which  constitute  the  Old  Testament  now 
in  common  use." — p.  63. 

But  this  does  not  advance  us  to  the  true  point  of  determination.  The  question 
still  remains  as  to  the  genuine  purport  of  the  language,  which,  as  you  have 
hinted  in  the  work  referred  to,  is  subject  to  some  doubt.  The  verb  "  is,"  which 
constitutes  the  whole  affirmation,  is  deficient  in  the  original  Greek,  and  is  sup- 
plied by  the  English  translators  as  an  index  to  their  interpretation  of  the  passage. 
The  sentence  undoubtedly  requires  a  verb  somewhere,  but  the  place  of  its  inser- 
tion depends  upon  the  judgment  of  the  translator.  In  the  received  version  it 
stands  in  the  first  clause. — "  All  scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  &c." 
Baxter,  Grotius,  Schleusner,  and  others  render  the  passage  thus; — "All  scripture 
given  by  inspiration  of  God,  is  also  profitable,  &c."  The  original,  1  think,  will 
admit,  without  violence,  of  either  rendermg,  though  inclined  myself  to  regard 
the  common  version  as  more  consonant  to  the  Greek  idiom  than  the  other.  But 
even  thus  translated  the  theopneustij  ascribed  to  the  "  all,"  or  every,  "  Scripture,"T 
does  not  in  itself  define  the  precise  nature  or  degree  of  the  inspiration  affirmed.  It' 
predicates  of  certain  writings  a  certain  character  expressed  by  the  term  God- 
breathed,  implying  undoubtedly  a  special  kind  of  influence,  from  a  supernatural 
source,  put  forth  upon  the  spirits  of  the  writers  and  controlling  the  form  and 
genius  of  their  compositions.  We  may  grant  that  these  books  have  all  of  them 
been  written  by  men  who  were  moved  by  devout  promptings,  which  are  to  be 
referred  for  their  source  to  the  afflatus  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  although  I  do  not 
know  that  the  phrase  "  holy  men"  applied  to  them  by  Peter  necessarily  implies 
the  personal  holiness  or  sanctity  of  the  individuals  employed  for  the  purpose.  The 
epithet  "  holy"  may  have  respect  rather  to  their  office,  Avhich  would  naturaUy 
confer  a  peculiar  consecration  upon  them,  as  the  chosen  media  of  divine  commu- 
nications ;  and  you  are  well  aware  that  the  primary  import  of  holy  is  set  apart. 
The  true  idea  of  inspiration,  I  think,  is  that  which  places  it  in  the  writings  and 
not  in  the  writers.    The  distinctive  character  induced  upon  the  sacred  books  and 

i constituting  them  a  divinely  inspired  word,  does  not,  I  imagine,  flow  forth  from 
the  internal  states,  as  to  goodness  and  truth,  of  the  several  persons  by  whom 
they  were  indited.   They  might  be  recipients  of  the  divine  influx,  for  a  particu- 
jj  lar  purpose,  without  being  at  the  same  time  truly  regenerate  men,  and  the 
function  they  performed  may  have  been  a  sufficient  ground  for  denominating 
■"^y  them  holy.    If  Saul  had  written  psalms  at  the  time  when  the  "  spirit  of  tlie  Lord" 
came  upon  him,  and  they  had  been  incorporated  into  the  Hagiographa  of  the 
Jews,  I  do  not  know  that  this  fact  would  have  required  any  modification  at  all  of 
^  the  saying  of  Peter,  that  in  inditing  the  Scriptures  "  holy  men  of  God  spake  as 
-1^  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost." 

But  conceding,  for  the  present,  that  the  writers  of  the  Old  Testament  were,  in 
their  measure,  good  men,  and  that  there  was  a  general  inflowing  into  their  affec- 


32 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


«  tions  and  thoughts  of  a  divine  principle,  as  there  is  more  or  less  into  those  of  all 
\  good  men,  still  I  am  unable  to  perceive  that  this  kind  of  inspiration,  which  may- 
have  been  common  to  them  all,  must  necessarily  preclude  the  idea  of  a  still 
higher  influence  having  been  imparted  to  some,  so  that  the  product  of  their 
promptings  shall  have  been  far  more  purely  divine  than  that  of  the  others.  This 
we  are  taught  by  Swedenborg  is  the  fact.  That  portion  of  the  Scriptures  which 
is  justly  denominated  the  Word  of  God  is  essential  divinity  itself — a  verbal  embodi- 
^  _ment  of  the  eternal  Truth  which  forms  a  constituent  part  of  the  Divine  nature. 
While,  therefore,  we  recognize  a  general  ihcopneusty  or  divine  breathing  ascribed 
by  Paul  to  all  the  books  constituting  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  we  still  regard 
this  as  something  incomparably  lower  than  that  plenary  divine  afflatus  under 
which  the  Word,  strictly  so  called,  was  written.  The  distinction  has  been  well 
expressed  by  Mr.  Noble  in  his  treatise  on  the  subject.  "  It  is  customary  with 
biblical  critics,  to  consider  inspiration  as  something  inseparably  attached  to  the 
persons  mspired,  so  that  whatever  they  might  write,  from  the  time  of  their  re- 
ceiving the  endowment  to  their  life's  end,  would  be  an  inspired  composition :  and 
some  even  appear  to  consider  the  e.xercise  of  the  gift  as  left  entirely  to  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  party  possessing  it.  That  there  is  such  a  species  of  inspiration  as 
this,  we  readily  admit ;  and  also,  that  it  was  possessed  by  the  Avriters  of  some  of 
the  books  contained  in  the  collection  called  the  Bible, — perhaps  by  them  all:  but 
without  an  inspiration  very  different  from  this,  imparted  either  in  addition  to  it 
or  quite  mdependently  of  it,  no  composition  that  can  be  called,  in  a  strict  and 
proper  sense, "  the  Word  of  God,"  could  ever  have  been  written.  This,  we  have 
seen,  must  be  given  by  a  plenary  divine  inspiration ;  and  such  an  inspiration,  it 
is  evident,  instead  of  being  a  constant  attendant  on  any  one,  could  last  no  longer 
than  while  he  was  delivering  the  message,  or  was  writing  the  book,  for  which  it 
was  afforded.  It  might  return  to  the  same  person  again,  as  it  commonly  did  to 
the  old  prophets,  or  it  might  not :  and  whatever  they  might  say  or  write  during 
the  intervals,  could  only  partake  of  that  inferior  inspiration  capable  of  being  at- 
tached to  a  person ;  and  not  necessarily  of  this.  We  have  seen  that  this  inferior 
inspiration  is  the  only  one  now  generally  acknowledged  to  belong  to  any  of  the 
books  contained  in  the  Bible  :  we  admit  that  some  of  these  books  may  be  com- 
posed from  this  kind  of  inspiration,  and  thence  have  no  sense  beside  that  of  the 
letter :  but  we  contend  that  the  far  greater  quantity,  both  in  bulk  and  number 
are  certainly  written  by  the  higher  inspiration,  and  have  a  spiritual  sense 
throughout." — Plen.  Insp.  p.  240. 

With  this  your  respected  colleague  expressly  agrees,  who  also  recognizes  the 
)  historical  fact  of  a  lower  degree  of  inspiration  being  ascribed  by  the  Jews  to  the 
Hagiographa.     "  In  fact,  the  lowest  gradation  of  inspiration  ascribed  by  the 
Rabbles  to  the  Ketubim,  is  as  high  as  Christianity  demands,  or,  as  one  may  say, 
■permits  us  to  ascribe  to  man.    No  man,  not  even  Moses  or  Isaiah,  was  uniform- 
illy  and  always  inspired.    Of  all~God's  messengers,  only  one  received  the  gift  of 
lithe  Spirit  without  rnieasure  ;  and  he  was  the  only  one  who  never  erred  and  never 
smned.    Others  were  inspired  for  a  particular  purpose,  and  (it  may  be)  remained 
so,  until  that  purpose  was  accomplished.    Then  they  returned  to  their  usual 
state.    So  it  was  even  with  Moses  ;  and  so  with  all  the  other  prophets  or  priests 
concerned  with  the  writing  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures."— (Sruart  on  0.  Test. 
p.  271  ) 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


You  will  scarcely  fail  to  infer  from  this,  that  your  solemn  remonstrance  on  the 
score  of  a  virtual  annulling,  by  Swedenborg'.s  assumptions,  of  the  authority  of 
Christ  and  the  Apostles,  has  extremely  little  weiglit  with  us.  We  find  that  our 
Lord  referred  to  "  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms"  as  testifying  of  him, 
and  we  cordially  abide  by  his  authority  in  this  reference,  and  whenever  you 
will  clearly  demonstrate  that  this  classification  of  the  sacred  and  canonical  books 
includes  those  to  which  Swedenborg  assigns  a  secondary  rank,  we  will  seriously 
re-consider  the  grounds  of  our  present  judgment  in  regard  to  them.  I  have 
read  the  work  of  Professor  Stuart  to  which  you  refer,  and  though  I  willingly 
bear  testimony  to  the  careful  coUation'and  extensive  research  evinced  in  it, 
yet  on  the  single  point  of  the  Hagiographa  I  do  not  think  his  results  conclu- 
sive, or  that  he  has  done  full  justice  to  the  opposite  views  of  Hengstenberg  in 
support  of  the  Talnmdic  bibliology.  His  work  I  regard  as  a  very  triumphant 
refutation  of  the  theory  of  Mr.  Norton  and  his  school,  but  as  inadequate  to 
countervail  the  decisions  of  Swedenborg  on  the  particular  department  in  ques^ 
tion.  You  will  of  course  feel  yourself  at  liberty  to  attribute  as  much  of  this  judg- 
ment as  you  think  proper  to  the  influence  of  a  pupil's  deference  to  the  authority 
of  a  master. 

As  to  the  impiety  of  a  constructive  charge  of  mistake  brought  against  the  Lord 
himself,  we  could  not  well  fail  to  be  as  much  horrified  at  the  bare  thought  of  it 
as  you  can  yourself  be,  should  we  for  a  moment  deem  that  the  imputation 
rested  upon  any  sufficient  basis.  His  clear  decision  upon  any  question  is,  in  our 
view,  the  ultimate  law  of  heaven  and  earth.  We  should  not  dare  to  doubt,  for 
an  instant,  the  canonicity  of  any  book  to  which  he  plainly  ascribes  such  a  char- 
acter ;  but  in  the  present  instance  we  are  not  satisfied  that  he  has  positively  pass- 
ed the  judgment  which  you  suppose,  and  therefore  your  remonstrance  on  this 
score  does  not  reach  our  convictions.  It  falls,  if  I  may  so  say,  «pon  a  certain 
callosity  in  our  minds,  from  which  it  suffers  a  rebound  and  leaves  us  unaffected. 

The  difficulty  you  find  in  conceiving  "by  what  means  he  determined  which 
of  the  sacred  books  have  the  internal  sense  and  which  have  it  not,"  is  to  my  ap- 
prehension no  greater  than  that  of  conceiving  how  he  should  have  learned  that 
there  was  any  spiritual  sense  at  all — any,  that  is,  depending  on  a  fixed  and  de- 
finable law.  We  have  no  difficulty  in  recognizing  the  truth  of  the  fundamental 
law  which  he  has  laid  down  on  this  score,  and  we  see  more  or  less  clearly  that 
the  application  of  this  law  brings  us  to  the  very  results  which  he  has  announced 
respecting  the  character  of  the  books  in  question. 

You  remark,  in  one  of  the  paragraphs  above  cited,  that  "  the  leading  doctrines  of 
the  gospel,  as  commonly  understood  by  Christians,  are  set  forth  most  clearly  and 
fully  in  the  Epistles.  Swedenborg  disbelieved  these  doctrines;  and  this  may 
have  been  a  reason  with  him  for  rejecting  the  Epistles."  Admitting,  merely  for 
the  sake  of  argument,  the  propriety  of  the  term  "  reject"  in  this  connection,  our 
mode  of  reasonmg  on  this  subject  is  directly  the  reverse.  We  believe  that  his 
dissent  from  these  doctrines,  as  popularly  understood,  was  not  strictly  anterior  to 
the  estimate  he  was  led  to  form  of  the  Epistles,  but  subsequent  and  consequential  to 
it.  He  was  enabled  to  perceive  that  a  certain  grand  principle  reigned  in  the 
construction  of  certain  books  in  the  Bible,  and  that  this  principle  did  not  obtain 
in  regard  to  certain  other  books.  This  perception  was  entu-ely  independent  of 
any  particular  form  of  prior  belief  or  disbelief ;  at  least  it  had  no  necessary  con- 


34  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOOD. 

nection  with  any  preformed  doctrinal  sentiments,  nor  is  it  possible  to  show  that 
such  sentiments  had  the  least  influence  in  prompting  the  verdict  he  has  pro- 
nounced upon  the  Epistles  as  compared  with  the  Gospels,  hrdeed,  considering 
the  circumstances  of  his  birth,  training,  and  ecclesiastical  relations,  the  presump- 
tion would  undoubtedly  be,  that  he  previously  believed  the  prevalent  doctrines  of 
his  country  and  age,  until  mstructed,  from  the  source  abovementioned,  in  theh 
fallacy.  But  however  this  may  be,  certain  it  is  that  it  can  never  be  shown  that 
Swedenborg  "  rejected,"  as  you  term  it,  the  Epistles  from  the  fact  of  his  previ- 
ously rejecting  the  doctrines  they  contain.  The  principles  on  which  his  discrimi- 
nation is  made  in\^olve  no  relation  to  any  prior  form  of  faith. 

With  respect, 

Yours,  &c., 

GEO.  BUSH. 

LETTER  IV. 

Rev.  and  Dear  Sir  : 

In  submitting  to  an  attentive  examination  the  scope  of  your  remarks  upon 
i"  the  predicted  effects  of  the  revelations  of  Swedenborg,"  it  may  seem  paradox- 
ical to  say  that  my  chief  difficulty  in  replying  to  it  consists  m  finding  no  difficulty 
at  all.  Yet  such  is  the  fact.  I  am  at  a  loss  to  conceive  the  exact  state  of  mind 
that  could  have  originated  the  vein  of  remark  to  which  you  here  give  utterance 
as  having  the  force  of  an  objection  to  the  general  claims  of  the  system  excepted 
to.    I  transcribe  the  passage. 

"  I  shall  now  remark  briefly  upon  the  predicted  effects  of  the  revelations  of  Sweden- 
borg. It  was  his  confident  belief,  that '  the  august  dispensation,'  (as  it  has  been 
called,)  which  he  introduced,  would  be  followed  by  glorious  results.  He  says, 
'  as  for  the  state  of  the  church— this  it  is  which  will  be  dissimilar  hereafter. 
Henceforth  the  man  of  the  church  will  be  in  a  more  free  way  of  thinking  in  spir- 
itual things,  because  sj^iritual  liberty  has  now  been  restored  to  him.'  Swedenborg 
thought  that  the  man  of  the  church  would  be  free  from  the  slavery  and  captivity 
under  which  he  had  been  suffiering,  and  would  be  able  to  perceive  interior  truths 
and  thus  to  become  more  like  himself.  Professor  Bush  speaks  very  eloquently  of 
the  new  dispensation  which  Swedenborg  introduced,  as  an  epoch  of  sublime  char- 
acter—as the  Lord's  second  coming,  which  was  to  signalize  itself  by  tlie  most  strik- 
ing phenomena  in  the  political  and  moral  world.  Such  an  event,  he  says,  must 
touch  all  the  secret  springs  of  revolution,  must  infuse  a  new  and  omnipotent  ele- 
ment into  all  the  great  prmciples  of  human  action.  '  The  coming  of  the  Lord— the 
descent  of  the  New  Jerusalem — shakes  heaven  and  earth.'  This  he  regards  as 
'  the  true  clew  to  all  the  grand  civil  and  ecclesiastical  movements  of  the  age.' 
Again  he  says, '  Swedenborg  has  broached  what  we  affirm  to  be  the  true  theory 
of  the  moral,  religious,  and  political  phenomena  of  the  age  in  which  we  live. 
He  has  suggested  the  ample  and  adequate  cause  of  the  astounding  eflects  every- 
where visible  around  us.  He  has  professedly  put  his  linger  uj)on  the  primum 
mobile  of  the  complicated  changes  that  arc  incessantly  tran.spiring  on  every  side.' 
— '  He  refers  all  the  grand  developments  which  are  now  swelling  to  a  superb 
revolution  in  the  state  of  the  world,  to  the  passing  away  of  an  old  di.spensation 
and  the  ushering  hi  of  a  new  one.'" — p.  21. 

I  should  certainly  deem  ii  very  indecorous  to  intimate  a  want  of  seriousness 
m  any  part  of  the  argument  you  have  seen  fit  to  institute  against  the  positions  of 
Swedenborg  and  the  firm  belief  of  his  adherents.  Nor  can  I  for  a  moment  ques- 
tion your  competency  to  distinguish  between  cau,?c''and  effec^m  weighing  the 
character  of  the  system  under  review.   Yet  one  or  the  other  of  these  siippositions 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


35 


seems  to  be  forced  upon  me  in  the  attempt  to  account  for  such  a  strange  inver- 
sion— such  a  palpable  iar  or  last  foremost — as  I  detect  in  your  rea- 
soning on  this  head.  The  very  language  employed  conveys  an  idea  as  foreign 
from  the  mind  of  a  New  Churchman  as  can  well  be  imagined.  He  knows  noth- 
ing of  any  "  predicted  effects  of  Swedenborg's  revelations"  considered  merely 
as  revelations,  and  apart  from  the  things  revealed.  Who  has  predicted  them 
You  say  of  Swedenborg  that  "  it  was  his  confident  belief  that  the  '  august  dis- 
pensation' (as  it  has  been  called)  which  he  introduced,  would  be  followed  by 
glorious  results,"  and  the  reader  is  evidently  left  to  uifer  that  these  results 
would  How  from  the  mere  announcement  of  the  dispensation,  or  from  his  personal 
agency  in  it,  instead  of  referring  them  to  the  legitimate  operation  of  the  tntths  and 
principles  which  really  constitute  the  dispensation.  His  disclosures  consist  sim-t» 
ply  of  the  declaration  of  a  high  order  of  causes,  made  known  to  him,  which  in  the-^ 
Divine  Providence  were  then  at  work,  and  which  would  issue  in  corresponding' 
effects  in  the  state  of  the  world  and  of  the  church.  His  revelations  were  the  reve-^ 
lations  of  these  causes,  but  the  revelations  themselves  no  more  produce  the  effect.^ 
than  the  astronomer's  calculations  of  an  eclipse  produce  the  eclipse.  The' 
eclipse  takes  place  whether  calculated  or  not ;  and  so,  although  it  was  indeed 
according  to  the  order  of  the  divine  counsels,  that  the  annunciation  of  the  pass- 
ing away  of  an  old  economy  and  the  ushering  in  of  a  new  one,  should  accom- 
pany the  event  itself,  yet  the  event  is  one  thing,  and  the  intelligence  of  it  another, 
which  it  would  not  seem  very  natural  to  confound  together.  It  may  doubtless 
be  admitted  that  Swedenborg  was  very  confident  that  the  dispensation  which  he 
introduced  (by  announcing  it)  would  be  followed  by  glorious  results ;  yet  he 
never  thought  of  referring  them  to  anything  else  than  to  the  primary  cause  to 
which  they  would  be  owing.  This  cause  according  to  him  was  the  fact  of  the 
occurrence  of  the  Second  Advent  of  the  Lord,  to  which  you  yourself  allude  as 
the  alleged  ground  of  the  expectation.  If  this  position  be  well  founded,  is  it  not 
sufficient  to  warrant  all  he  has  said  in  regard  to  the  inevitable  effects  ?  Will  not 
"an  epoch  of  such  sublime  character  signalize  itself  by  the  most  striking  phe- 
nomena in  the  political  and  moral  world  .'"  And  is  it  not  obvious  that  this  is  the 
true  point  of  debate — whether  his  teaching  respecting  the  nature  and  time  of  the 
Second  Advent  be  sustained  by  competent  evidence  or  not How  is  it  possible 
that  you  should  pass  by  this  as  a  question  of  no  account,  when  it  is  in  fact  the 
hinge  on  which  the  whole  controversy  turns If  the  coming  of  the  Lord  is  an 
event  to  take  place  spiritualUj,  and  not  in  a  personal  and  visible  manner,  will  it 
not  "  shake  heaven  and  earth  ?"  Can  you  conceive  it  to  be  otherwise  And  is 
not  the  question  a  fair  theme  of  discussion We  distinctly  assert  that  we  are 
prepared  to  show,  by  the  most  legitimate  process  of  mterpretation,  that  if  such 
an  event  is  ever  to  occur,  it  must  occur  at  the  time  and  in  the  manner  which 
Swedenborg  has  asserted.  Why  do  you  decline  to  meet  our  arguments  And 
why  do  you  feel  at  liberty  to  shift  the  issue  from  the  cause  to  the  effect  ?  If  you 
believe  the  Bible,  you  believe  that  at  some  time  or  other  "  the  holy  city,  the  New 
Jerusalem,  is  to  descend  from  God  out  of  heaven  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned  for 
her  husband."  Can  you  suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  bare  annunciation  or 
prediction  of  such  a  descent  will  effect  it The  prediction  has  indeed  been  made, 
and  the  time  and  manner  of  its  fulfilment  is  a  perfectly  proper  siibject  of  inquiry, 
and  one  too  about  which  every  Christian,  and  especially  every  Christian  minis- 


38 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


ter  ought  to  have  an  opinion.  If  he  slurs  it  over,  or  puts  it  away  from  considera- 
tion, as  among  the  mysterious  things  with  which  he  has  no  concern,  he  dishon- 
ors the  divine  revelation — he  virtually  charges  God  with  making  useless  disclo- 
sures, and  that  too  hi  a  book  which  bears  upon  its  front  the  emphatic  assurance 
— "  Blessed  is  he  that  readeth  and  keepeth  the  sayings  of  this  book."  How  does 
he  know  that  he  has  no  concern  in  the  oracles  respecting  the  New  Jerusalem 
and  the  Second  Advent Is  it  not  possible  that  diligent  inquiry  might  bring 
him  to  a  very  different  conclusion  ?  Would  the  Jew  have  been  justified  in  plead- 
ing that  the  predictions  respecting  the  Messiah  and  the  Fhst  Advent  were  veiled 
in  such  impenetrable  obscurity  that  it  were  a  waste  of  labor  to  attempt  to  inves- 
tigate'their  meaning  .>  Was  not  this  the  very  rock  on  which  the  nation,  as  a 
body,  split And  is  it  for  Christian  men  to  enact  over  again  the  same  infatuation  ? 
Be  assured,  my  dear  sir,  there  is  a  danger  here  of  which  the  Christian  world  is 
but  little  aware.  It  is  impossible  for  any  one  who  has  not  examined  the  proph- 
ecies with  attention  to  be  positively  certain  of  safety  in  neglecting  to  ponder  the 
very  announcements  which  Swedenboi>g  has  made  respecting  the  character  of 
the  present  era.  We  may  be  at  the  point  at  which  it  can  properly  be  said  of  us, 
"  0  that  thou  hadst  known  the  day  of  thy  visitation  !" 

In  view  of  the  scope  of  my  remarks,  so  amply  quoted  above,  I  was,  in  the  pe- 
rusal, anticipating  of  course  your  reply  to  the  fundamental  assumption,  so  clearly 
indicated  throughout,  that  all  the  signal  effects  adverted  to  were  traceable  to  the 
great  cause  assigned  by  Swedenborg,  when,  to  my  surprise,  I  encountered  the 
following  2Ma«\ejoinder: 

"  I  must  leave  it  to  the  followers  of  Swedenborg  to  make  it  appear,  that  the 
grand  social,  moral  and  intellectual  movement,  which,  during  the  last  eighty 
years  has  been  changing  the  face  of  the  civilized  world,  has  been  owing  to  his 
system.  Let  it  be,  that  the  grand  movement  referred  to,  did  commence  about 
the  middle  of  the  last  century.  The  question  to  be  answered  is,  what  influence 
the  revelations  of  Swedenborg  had  to  originate  that  movement,  or  to  carry  it 
forward.  Many  events  are  counected  in  point  of  time,  which  have  no  connect- 
ion as  cause  and  effect.  Many  learned  men,  now  living,  were  born  just  before  the 
American  revolution.  But  who  ever  thought  that  any  or  all  of  those  births  had 
any  influence  in  promoting  the  revolution Let  any  advocate  of  Swedenborg 
show,  if  he  can,  that  his  principles  specially  contributed,  in  any  way,  to  the 
revolutions  alluded  to,  or  that  they  had  at  the  time,  or  have  had  since,  any  par- 
ticular tendency  to  promote  them.  Other  things  can  be  mentioned,  and  often 
have  been  mentioned,  which  manifestly  had  such  a  tendency.  But  who  among 
the  profoundest  writers  on  the  affairs  of  nations,  whether  philosophers,  histori- 
ans, or  civilians,  ever  perceived  or  imagined  any  connection  between  the  reve- 
lations of  Swedenborg,  and  the  grand  civil,  moral,  and  intellectual  changes  which 
have  occuned  during  the  last  80  or 90  years? — p.  23. 

The  "  followers  of  Swedenborg"  will  not  probably  be  particularly  "  careful  to 
answer  thee  in  this  matter."  They  assume  to  "  make"  nothing  "  appear"  on 
this  head  but  their  full  belief  and  assurance  that  the  "  grand  social,  moral,  and 
intellectual  movement"  referred  to  is  due  to  the  principles  and  agencies  which 
Swedenborg's  system  discloses,  and  which  are  as  much  the  cause  of  his  system 
itself  as  of  anything  else.  Nothing  more,  I  conceive,  is  necessary  in  reply  to 
the  drift  of  the  argument  in  this  paragraph,  which  is  concentrated  in  the  following 
query ; — "  Who  among  the  profoundest  writers  on  the  afliairs  of  nations,  whether 
philosophers,  historians,  or  civilians,  ever  joerceived  or  imagined  any  connection 
between  the  revelations  of  Swedenborg,  and  the  grand  civil,  mord,  and  Intel- 


-'-   ■  — ^^"^  / 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


37 


lectual  changes  which  have  occurred  during  the  last  eighty  or  ninety  years?" 
The  connection  asserted  is  between  these  changes  and  the  things  revealed  by  Swe- 
denborg,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  very  small  consequence  whether  this  has  been  per- 
ceived by  the  philosophers  or  not.   Their  perception  is  not  unfrequently  very  ob- 
tuse when  they  come  to  deal  with  the  caitses  of  tilings.    The  historian  Gibbon 
^fundertook,  in  his  great  work,  to  assign  the  cattses  of  the  rapid  spread  and  estab- 
lishment of  Christianity  in  the  Roman  empire.    The  argument  was  reviewed 
by  Priestley,  who  showed  very  conclusively  that  what  the  historian  took  for 
causes  were  merely  effects.    Your  argument,  I  humbly  conceive,  makes  a  still 
^  t' greater  mistake  by  confounding  the  anouncemeut  of  causes  with  the  causes  themselves. 
The  assumptions  hinted  at  in  the  following  paragraph  are  indeed  substantially 
made  by  Swedenborg,  and  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  they  are  contravened  by  any- 
thing advanced  in  your  phamplet. 

"  Swedenborg  did  indeed  teach,  that  the  men  of  the  church  would  be  the  men> 
who  would  experience  the  most  signal  effects  of  the  New  dispensation ;  that 
they  were  the  ones,  who  would  be  freed  from  the  bondage  of  error,  and  would 
be  more  spiritual,  more  heavenly,  and  more  active  in  doing  good.  The  whole 
church,  Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic,  before  his  teachings  were  published,  was, 
he  thought,  in  a  state  of  total  darkness.  He  takes  high  ground  on  this  subject, 
and  asks — '  Who  in  the  Christian  world  would  have  known  anything  of  heaven 
or  hell,  unless  it  had  pleased  the  Lord  to  open  in  some  one  the  sight  of  his  spirit, 
to  show  and  to  teach.''  The  whole  Christian  world,  he  thought,  had  gone 
astray  from  the  truth,  and  involved  itself  in  the  grossest '  falses,'  and  was  sunk 
to  the  lowest  degredation.  He  held  that  all  the  churches,  the  whole  body  of  Cliris- 
tians,  were  ignorant  of  the  true  meaning  of  the  Scriptures  ;  and  that  he  was  com- 
missioned to  teach  what  had  not  been  known  respecting  God  and  Christ,  heaven 
and  hell,  and  all  the  great  things  of  religion,  and  that  the  New  Jerusalem  Church 
which  he  ushered  in,  was  the  only  true  church,  and  was  to  be  the  salt  of  the 
earth,  and  the  light  of  the  world." — p.  23. 

So  far  as  the  "  men  of  the  church"  do  really  experience  the  life  and  power  of 
the  New  Dispensation,  they  do  undoubtedly  become  "  more  free  from  the  bond- 
age of  error,  more  spiritual,  and  more  heavenly"  than  others.  If  I  do  not  add, 
"  more  active  in  doing  good,"  it  is  not  because  action  or  life — a  life  of  beneficent 
vse — is  not  the  grand  constituent  element  of  their  religion,  but  because  the  pri- 
mary object  of  their  solicitude  is  being  good,  and  because  their  views  on  this 
head  may  not  perhaps  ultimate  themselves  in  precisely  such  forms  of  benevolent 
activity  as  you  Avould  deem  the  natural  or  necessary  result.  As  a  general  prin- 
ciple, they  regard  the  neighbor  whom  they  are  to  love  and  to  benefit  as  the  vicinw, 
the  one  near  by,  and  the  salutary  influence  they  would  fain  exert  upon  him  they 
believe  will  be  propagated,  like  widenmg  waves,  as  from  so  many  centres  tUl 
it  finally  reaches  the  circumference  of  society  and  of  the  race.  Looking  upon 
this  as  the  established  order  of  heaven,  they  endeavor  to  conform  to  it,  and 
while  they  oppose  no  impediment  or  remonstrance  to  the  various  reforming  or 
missionary  operations  of  the  age,  they  ask  to  be  not  harshly  judged  if  they  en- 
deavor to  accomplish  their  "  labors  of  love"  in  the  way  which  strikes  them  as 
most  accordant  with  the  true  genius  of  the  moral  code  which  they  have  adopted. 
They  humbly  trust  they  are  doing  something  for  the  most  important  interests  of 
humanity,  but  what  they  have  been  taught  respecting  the  inseparably  orderly 
connection  between  Truth  and  Good,  prevents  an  alliance  with  schemes  aiming 


33 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


at  the  latter  which  at  the  same  tirae  uivolve  principles  or  doctrines  that,  in  their 
judgment,  compromise  the  former.  If  it  be  said  that  this  is  no  argument  why 
they  should  not  league  their  efforts,  on  the  ground  of  their  oAvn  faith,  to  secure 
the  extension  of  their  peculiar  religious  sentiments  and  the  good  which  they 
embody,  I  can  only  reply,  that  their  numbers,  from  causes  which  they  can  well 
assign  to  themselves,  have  been  hitherto  so  few,  and  those  so  scattered,  that 
concert  of  action,  to  any  great  degree,  has  been  almost  impracticable.  But  from 
existing  omens  they  regard  the  prospect  in  this  respect  as  daily  brightening, 
and  the  lapse  of  a  few  years  may  perhaps  give  a  new  aspect,  in  this  respect,  to 
the  New  Church.* 

As  to  the  alleged  implication  of  a  reigning  darkness,  error,  and  falsity  in  the 
great  body  of  the  then  existing  Christian  church,  we  have  no  disposition  to 
deny  or  evade  its  truth.  On  the  contrary,  our  belief  in  the  truth  of  the  charge  is  most 
firm  and  unwavering.  We  are  fully  assured  that  Swedenborg  toas  "  commis- 
sioned to  teach  what  had  not  been  known  respecting  God  and  Christ,  heaven 
and  hell,  and  all  the  great  things  of  religion."  We  believe  too  that  the  condition 
of  the  church,  under  this  prevailing  blindness  and  deadness  to  the  interior  spir- 
itual truths  of  the  Word,  was  among  the  chief  reasons  which  rendered  his  mis- 
sion necessary.  We  cannot  conceive  how  it  were  possible,  that  the  Gospel  of 
God  our  Saviour  should  exert  its  appropriate  moral  power  over  the  souls  of  men. 
without  a  distinct  revelation  of  the  essential  and  formal  nature  of  heaven  and 
hell,  and  of  the  fixed  and  immutable  laws  by  which  human  destiny,  in  the  other 
life,  is  governed.  We  perceive  that  previous  to  his  disclosures  there  were  no 
definite  ideas  held  or  enunciated  on  these  subjects — that  the  future  life  was  a  field 
of  endless  conjecture — that  the  fundamental  principles  on  which  the  relation  of 
the  spiritual  to  the  natural  world  subsists  were  likewise  a  theme  of  perpetual 
guessing — and  that  this  general  absence  of  all  distinct  knowledge  on  these  heads 
had  given  rise  to  an  almost  universal  relaxation  of  the  life  and  power  of  true 
godliness,  the  essence  of  which  is  charity,  and  which  can  only  flourish  as  it  is 
fed  and  sustamed  by  an  intelligent  perception  of  its  fixed  relation,  according  to 
immutable  laws,  with  the  realities  of  the  spiritual  world.   On  all  these  subjects 


*  "  The  causes  why  the  New  Church,  which  is  called  the  Holy  Jerusalem,  is  first  to 
commence  with  a  few,  afterwards  with  greater  numbers,  and  so  at  last  to  arrive  to  its 
full  .state,  are  several  ;  the  first  is,  that  its  doctrine,  which  is  the  doctrine  of  love  to  the 
Lord  and  charily  towards  the  neighbor,  cannot  be  acknowledged  and  thence  received, 
except  by  those  who  are  interiorly  affected  with  truths,  and  no  others  are  interiorly  af- 
fected with  truths  but  they  who  see  them,  and  they  only  see  them  who  have  cultivated 
their  intellectual  (acuity,  and  have  not  destroyed  it  in  themselves  by  the  loves  of  self  and 
of  the  world.  Another  cause  is,  that  the  doctrine  of  that  church  cannot  be  acknowl- 
edged, nor  consequently  received,  except  by  those  who  have  not  confirmed  themselves 
in  doctrine,  and  at  the  same  time  in  life,  in  faith  alone  ;  confirmation  in  doctrine  only 
does  not  hinder  reception,  but  if  it  be  at  the  same  time  in  life  it  does  hinder,  for  such 
persons  do  not  know  what  love  to  the  Lord  is,  nor  what  neighborly  love  or  charity  is, 
neither  are  they  willing  to  know.  The  third  cause  is,  that  the  Now  Church  on  earth 
increases  according  to  its  increase  in  the  world  of  spirits,  for  spirits  from  thence  are  with 
men,  and  they  are  from  those  who  were  in  the  faith  of  their  church,  whilst  they  lived 
on  earth,  and  no  others  of  them  receive  the  doctrine,  but  those  who  were  in  the  spir- 
itual affection  of  truth,  such  only  are  conjoined  to  lieaven,  where  that  doctrine  is,  and 
conjoin  heaven  to  man:  the  number  of  those  in  the  spiritual  world  now  increases  daily, 
wherefore  according  to  their  increase,  the  church  which  is  called  the  New  Jerusalem 
increases  on  earth.  These  also  were  the  causes,  why  the  christian  church,  after  the 
Lord  left  the  world,  increased  so  slow  in  Europe,  and  did  not  arrive  to  its  full  until  an 
age  had  elapsed." — Apoc.  Expl.  732. 


;lotrc  .M-^o  x^**  5C/^<>  l^-H^-t-a^yv. 


3.^<M.  W^iv^  iriLj-TA. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


39 


we  deem  that  Swedenborg,  in  his  supernatural  function  as  Seer,  has  poured  a 
flood  of  Ught— that  he  has  not  only  unveiled  the  phenomena  of  the  life  to  conie, 
but  has  developed  its  philosophy  also — that  he  has  fully  shown  how  and  wh'fit 
is  that  the  condition  of  spirits  is  what  it  is.  In  executing  this  great  mission  he 
has  moreover  with  a  somewhat  stern,  but  benevolent  fidelity,  rent  away  the 
coverings  which  concealed  from  itself  the  hidden  gangrene— the  wasting  corrup- 
tion— that  was  preying  upon  the  vitals  of  the  church  in  the  omni-prevalence  of 
the  Splifidian' tenet  and  the  absence  of  true  hving  charity.  This  he  has  done, 
not  in  order  to  give  the  enemy  occasion  to  say,  "  Aha  !  aha  !" — not  to  glory  over 
her  infirmities — but  to  indicate  and  administer  the  only  remedy — to  point  her  to 
the  true  physician  and  to  put  her  in  quest  of  the  healing  balm. 

What  now,  is  the  true  answer  to  all  this  ?  Must  it  not  be  either  the  admission 
or  the  denial  of  the  soundness  of  the"  grounds  on  which  our  assertions  are 
made  ?  Here  are  plain  and  emphatic  assumptions  which  we  are  prepared  to  de- 
fend, and  on  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  which  we  claim  to  be  met.  We  see  no 
argument  in  the  mere  holding  up  our  positions  so  as  to  excite  a  horrified  won- 
der at  the  effrontery  which  could  dare  thus  to  array  itself  against  the  universal 
sense  or  sentiment  of  the  Christian  world.  But  it  seems  you  would  turn  the 
matter  to  an  argumentative  account  by  showing  that  the  results  have  not  been 
at  all  adequate  to  the  large  and  lofty  pretensions  set  forth. 

"  But  I  ask,  what  the  men  of  the  church  have  done.  There  has  been  ample  time 
surely,  for  some  of  the  expected  effects  of  the  New  Dispensation  to  appear.  The 
leaven  has  had  almost  a  century  to  work.  But  what  has  been  the  result The 
christian  dispensation  gave  rise  to  great  events  during  the  life  of  the  Apostles. 
In  a  short  time  it  changed  the  face  of  the  world.  But  what  has  this  new  form 
of  Christianity  done  What  important  results  have  flowed  from  the  introduction 
of  the  New  Chitrch — which  Swedenborg  regarded  as  so  superior  to  all  preceding 
dispensations  What  remarkable  conversions— what  instances  of  uncommon 
piety,  or  uncommon  usefulness  has  it  produced What  enterprises  for  the  good 
of  the  human  race  has  it  originated Where  among  the  various  plans  which 
have  been  pursued  for  the  intellectual,  civil,  or  moral  improvement  of  the  world, 
can  yoix  perceive  any  traces  of  the  special  agency  of  Swedenborgians If  they 
have  had  the  benefit  of  so  much  new  light  from  heaven — if,  as  they  think,  the 
all-powerful  truths  of  religion,  which  have  been  concealed  from  the  rest  of  the 
world,  have  been  revealed  to  them,  and  they  have  thus  been  distinguished  above 
all  who  have  been  called  christians ;  we  should  have  expected  them  to  exert  a 
distinguished  influence  in  enlightening  and  saving  their  fellow-men.  But  where 
can  you  trace  the  footsteps  of  such  an  influence Historians,  who  have  been 
enemies  to  the  Puritanism  which  sprung  up  and  prevailed  in  England,  have  been 
compelled  to  acknowledge  it  as  the  great  cause  wjiich  operated  in  favor  of  civil 
liberty.  But  what  respectable  historian  has  referred  to  Swedenborgianism,  as  a 
cause  which  has  operated  in  favor  of  any  important  public  object  ?  Christianity 
accomplished  wonders  at  its  very  beginning.  But  what  has  this  new  form  of 
Christianity  accomplished  in  a  hundred  years  The  men  of  the  church  were  to 
be  different  men,  more  free,  more  spiritual,  more  completely  under  the  influence 
of  truth  and  love.  But  who  among  them,  either  here  or  in  other  lands,  has  in 
these  respects,  been  distinguished  above  all  other  christians  ?  I  ask  not,  who 
among  them  has  possessed  sincere  piety;  but  who  has  risen  to  the  pretended 
pre-eminence Who  has  attained  to  a  higher  degree  of  spirituality,  to  a  more 
fervent  devotion,  or  a  more  enlarged  and  active  benevolence,  than  multitudes  of 
ministers  of  the  gospel  and  private  christians  in  the  Protestant  churches  of  Eu- 
rope and  America  And  yet  all  these,  according  to  the  strange  notions  of  Swe- 
denborg, are  to  be  excluded  from  the  list  of  enlightened,  spiritual  Christians, 
and  to  be  looked  upon  as  destitute  of  '  the  truths  of  faith  and  the  goods  of  char- 
ity.' " — p.  24. 


40 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


It  cannot  fail  to  be  seen  that  a  certain  air  of  triumphant  interrogation  pervades 
this  paragraph.  The  questions  aslied  are  evidently  asked  under  the  confident 
impression  that  they  cannot  be  answered.  What,  now,  will  you  say  should 
we  even  consent  to  abide  by  the  test  here  propounded  to  us What  if  we  should 
not  only  claim  all  that  is  thus  virtually  denied  to  our  system,  but  all  that  is  in 
effect  challenged  to  yours,  m  the  way  of  the  extraordinary  forth-putting  of  be- 
nevolent zeal  and  active  effort  during  the  period  specified  ?  You  speak  of  "  re- 
markable conversions" — of  "  instances  of  uncommon  piety  or  usefuhress" — of 
"  enterprizes  originated  for  the  good  of  the  human  race" — of  "  various  plans 
pursued  for  the  mtellectual,  civil,  or  moral  improvement  of  the  world" — all 
which  you  would  doubtless  rank  among  the  striking  features  of  the  age,  and 
yet  among  which  you  discern  no  perceptible  traces  of  the  agency  of  this  "  new 
form  of  Christianity."  Now  granting  the  main  assumption,  that  various  moral 
movements  of  a  high  order  have  distinguished  the  last  eighty  or  ninety  years,  in 
which  the  lead'mg  branches  of  the  present  Christian  church  have  borne  the 
most  prominent  part,  I  yet  venture  the  assertion  that  the  system  of  the  New 
Church  may  justly  claim  the  credit  of  the  whole,  for  that  system  professes  to 
embody  a  revelation  of  the  causes  to  which  the  distinguishing  character  of  the 
era  in  question  is  owing.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  active  personEil  partici- 
pation of  New  Churchmen  in  these  movements,  I  scruple  not  to  affirm  that  the 
system  which  they  have  embraced  contains  within  itself  the  prime  moving 
springs  of  the  entire  machinery  of  benevolence  and  action  to  which  you  would 
doubtless  point  as  the  crowning  glory  of  our  age.  If  that  system  is  true,  the 
sublime  event  of  the  Lords'  Second  Coming  entered  on  its  incipiency  about  the 
middle  of  the  last  century,  and  it  is  to  this  epoch  that  the  grand  revelation  to 
which  you  allude  is  referred  as  its  announcement.  We  recognize  therefore  in 
the  relation  of  our  system  to  these  stupendous  changes,  civil,  intellectual,  and 
moral,  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect.  They  are  precisely  such  results  as  we 
were  taught  to  anticipate,  though  their  occurrence  is  as  truly  independent  of  our 
personal  ostensible  agency  as  the  revolution  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  in  accord- 
ance with  Newton's  great  law  of  gravitation,  is  independent  of  his  scientific  an- 
nunciations of  their  periods.  The  celestial  spheres  roll  on  under  the  impulse  of 
their  own  laws  regardless  of  his  predictions  however  accurate.  The  hoop  with 
which  he  may  have  played  in  childhood  bears  no  more  proportion  to  the  im- 
mense orbits  which  his  calculus  afterwards  measured,  than  do  the  puny  efforts 
of  the  men  of  the  New  Church  to  the  grandeur  of  the  issues  tliat  flow  from  the 
truths  and  principles  to  which  they  have  subjoined  their  credo. 

"  Christianity  accomplished  wonders  at  its  very  begmning.  But  what  has  this 
new  form  of  Christianity  accomplished  in  a  hundred  years.'"  Circumspick — as 
the  epitaph  reads  on  the  architects'  tomb,  when  the  query  of  the  passing  stran- 
ger is  answered  as  to  the  monuments  of  his  genius — look  around  on  every  side 
and  peruse  the  record  of  its  achievements.  The  testimonies  to  the  triiunphs  of 
your  faith  are  the  living  witnesses  to  those  of  ours. 

With  much  respect, 

Yours,  &c., 

GEO.  BUSH. 


I 
V 


1$  K:  2soiC\^. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


41 


LETTER  V. 


Rev.  and  Dear  Sm : 


The  subject  to  which  you  next  approach  is  "  the  manner  in  which  SwedeBLj{_ 
borg  jijjjgjgjej^the  Scriptures."  After  remarking  upon  the  prevalence,  among  ^ 
the  early  Christian  fathers,  and  among  some  of  the  moderns,  of  an  g.llefcQr_izinfot 
spiritualizing  style  in  expounding  the  sacred  writiiigs,  in  which  the  object  is 
not  so  much  to  ascertain  what  sense  was  in  the  mind  of  the  writers,  as  how 
many  senses  they  could  give  to  each  passage — without,  however,  claiming  a 
divine  authority  for  their  interpretations — you  observe  that  Swedenborg  comes 
forward  with  a  claim  to  supernatural  and  infallible  illumination,  and  that  under 
the  promptings  of  this  inspiration, "  the  ordinary  and  most  tranquil  movements  of 
his  active,  fervid  spirit,  exceed  the  highest  flights  of  the  allegorizing  interpreters 
who  preceded  him."   You  then  go  on  to  ask : 

"  What  now  are  we  to  think  of  the  lofty  affirmation  of  Swedenborg,  that  the 
whole  Christian  world  was  ignorant  of  the  true  spiritual  sense  of  the  word  of 
God,  and  filled  with  the  grossest  mistakes  and  'falses'  on  the  subject  of  religion, 
until  he  was  commissioned  to  give  instruction  .'  Is  such  an  affirmation  entitled 
to  our  belief.'  Is  it  credible,  that  the  revelation  which  God  made  under  the  for- 
mer and  the  latter  economy,  absolutely  required  another  revelation  from  heaven, 
to  disclose  its  true  meaning And  was  that  other  revelation  made  to  Sweden- 
hoTg,  and  through  him  to  the  world,  near  the  middle  of  the  last  century  On  all 
essential  points,  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  appear  to  be 
very  plain.  They  were  evidently  designed  for  the  benefit  of  the  common  peo- 
ple. And  who  can  doubt  that  common  people,  and  even  children,  have  had  all 
the  knowledge  of  them,  which  is  essential  to  salvation  .'  We  know  that,  except 
in  infancy,  some  right  knowledge  of  divine  truth,  some  spiritual  discernment  of 
the  things  of  religion,  belong  to  all  who  are  saved.  To  multitudes,  in  different 
ages  since  the  death  of  Christ,  the  word  of  God  has  been  quick  and  powerful. 
And  this  quickening  word  is  found  in  the  writmgs  of  those  to  whom  Christ  pro- 
mised the  Holy  Spirit,  to  guide  them  into  all  the  truth  1  The  Spirit  was  promised 
and  given  to  the  Apostles,  not  only  to  enlighten  their  own  minds,  but  to  qualify 
them  to  teach  others.  And  what  is  necessary  to  enable  the  common  people 
rightly  to  understand  the  teachings  of  the  Apostles  .'  Not  a  new  revelation  from 
heaven,  but  a  new  heart,  a  heart  to  receive  and  love  the  revelation  already 
made.  The  hearts  of  men  are  naturally  blinded  by  sin.  The  Spirit  subdues  the 
power  of  sin,  and  in  that  way  removes  the  blindness,  and  opens  the  eyes  to  see 
the  light.  The  Apostle  speaks  of  God's  shining  in  the  hearts  of  men.  This  has 
been  the  common  privilege  of  Christians  in  all  ages.  It  was  their  privilege  be- 
fore the  time  of  Swedenborg,  as  much  as  since.  It  has  been  given  them  of  God, 
to  discern  spiritual  things.  True,  they  have  not  had  Swedenborg' s  discernment. 
They  have  not  understood  spiritual  things,  as  he  understood  them.  The  Apostles 
had  the  promise  of  being  guided  into  a/7  the  truth.  But  did  they  ever  understand 
the  word  of  God  as  Swedenborg  did When  and  where  did  they  give  such  in- 
terpretations of  the  Scriptures,  as  are  found  in  his  writings But  it  would  be  in 
vain  to  propose  such  a  question  to  any  one  who  rejects  all  the  Apostolic  Epistles. 
What  those  Epistles  contam  is  now  to  be  set  aside,  to  make  room  for  the  revela- 
tions of  the  last  century.  And  even  as  to  what  Swedenborg  admitted  to  be  the 
word  of  God,  a  sense  is  to  be  apprehended  and  received,  which  is  altogether  dif- 
ferent from  what  plain,  honest,  pious  men  have  ever  apprehended,  or  would  be 
likely  to  apprehend, — a  sense  which  never  came  into  the  mind  of  any  one,  be- 
fore Swedenborg." — p.  29. 

The  burden  of  this  entire  strain  of  descant  may  be  compressed  into  the  single 
sentence  in  which  you  hint  at  the  utter  incredibility  of  the  hypothesis,  that  "  the 
revelation  which  God  made  xmder  the  former  and  the  latter  economy  required 


42 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


another  revelation  from  heaven,  to  disclose  its  true  meaning."  This  you  regard 
as  utterly  beyond  belief  not  only  from  the  general  plainness  of  the  sacred  writ- 
ings and  their  consequent  adaptation  to  the  wants  of  common  people  and  child- 
ren, but  from  the  fact,  that  the  Holy  Spirit  was  promised  to  the  apostles  to  guide 
tliem  into  all  truth,  and  that  under  this  guidance  they  have  been  enabled  to  utter 
themselves  quite  intelligibly  to  the  great  mass  of  inen.  What  need  then  of  a 
new  revelation  from  heaven  ?  The  grand  requisite  is  not  a  new  revelation,  but 
a  new  heart,  "  a  heart  to  receive  and  love  the  revelation  already  made." 

We  should  probably  fall  very  little  behind  you  in  the  deep  conviction  of  the 
necessity  of  a  "  new  heart"  to  a  right  entertainment  of  the  revelation  already  be- 
stowed. But  this  does  not  militate  with  the  equally  strong  conviction,  that 
ends  worthy  of  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness  may  dictate  the  bestowment  of 
new  light  in  regard  to  the  interior  genius  and  scope  of  the  written  Word.  If, 
for  instance,  we  could  suppose  that  there  were  in  fact  certain  principles  or 
powers  in  our  nature  hitherto  undetected,  which  laid  an  adequate  foundation 
for  an  interior  or  spiritual  sense  in  the  inspired  writings,  and  yet  that  these  prin- 
ciples or  powers  were  such  that  they  could  not  be  fully  developed  without  a 
special  illumination,  is  it  not  easily  conceivable,  that  such  an  illumination  would 
be  warranted  by  the  important  results  to  flow  from  it Does  not  the  psychological 
nature  of  man  bear  a  distinct  relation  to  the  subject-matter  of  a  divine  revelation  .' 
Is  it  in  aught  inconsistent  with  our  best  views  of  the  perfections  of  the  Deity  to 
believe,  that  he  would  interpose  for  the  purpose  of  acquainting  mankind  with 
the  great  truths  of  their  inner  constitution  And  if  we  suppose,  moreover,  that 
this  revelation  could  only  be  made  by  the  unveiling  of  the  state  of  the  soul  after 
death,  is  it  not  conceivable — as  it  will  readily  be  granted  to  be  possible — that  some 
individual  of  the  race,  suitably  endowed,  might  be  chosen  for  the  purpose  and 
made  the  subject  of  a  species  of  translation  into  the  spiritual  sphere,  and  that  too 
with  the  express  design  of  his  being  qualified  to  impart  the  knowledge  thus  ob- 
tained to  his  fellow-men  Now  this  is,  in  fact,  the  claim  which  is  made  ui  be- 
half of  Swedenborg.  It  is  contended  that  he  has,  by  special  illumination,  laid 
open  the  interior  structure  of  the  human  spirit,  and  developed  such  laws  and 
principles  as  absolutely  necessitate  the  conclusion  that  there  must  be  an  interior 
<t.  Jor  spiritual  sense  to  the  Word.  He  instructs  us  in  the  fact  of  an  all-important 
/{  ^distinction  between  natural  and  spiritual  thought — that  angels  and  spirits,  who 
u  u  />  from  the  human  race,  come  into  a  psychological  condition,  in  the^  other 

^^Oife,  in  which  they  necessarily  receive  spiritual  ideas  from  natural  expressions — 
Of  f  ind  that  this  .sjiiritual  sense  is  governed  by  laws  as  fixed  and  immutable  as  those 
^  that  prevail  in  the  material  universe.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  this  implies  the  ex- 
istence and  the  reading  of  the  Word  in  the  spiritual  world  as  well  as  in  this,  but 
such  he  affirms  to  be  the  fact,  though  it  is  often  read  by  spirits  in  our  minds, 
while  we  ourselves  are  reading  it,  and  the  evidence  he  affords  in  regard  to  this 
fact,  entitles  him,  in  our  belief,  to  the  utmost  credit.  We  grant,  moreover,  that 
the  position  is  fairly  open  to  the  query,  how  a  sense  of  the  Word,  which  is  more 
appropriately  taken  by  disembodied  spirits,  can  be  suitable  or  necessary  to  men 
in  the  flesh ;  to  which  my  reply  is,  that  this  internal  perception  may  be  awak- 
ened in  the  present  life,  and  that  every  spiritually  minded  person  does  come  into 
it  more  or  less,  in  proportion  as  he  is  regenerated,  or  as  the  angelic  nature  pre- 
dominates over  the  sensual  and  earthly,  for  you  justly  remark,  that,  "  except  in 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


43 


infancy,  some  right  icnowledge  of  divine  truth,  some  spiritual  discernment  of  the 
things  of  reHgion,  belong  to  all  who  are  saved."  Still  we  hold  that  the  rccogni- 
tion  of  this  internal  sense  is  clear  and  definite  according  as  the  principles  on 

N  which  it  is  founded  are  intelligently  apprehended,  which  is  usually  the  result  of 

"  a  familiar  converse  with  Swedenborg's  writings. 

A     I  would  now  submit  whether  the  view  thus  presented  can  be  justly  charged 
with  anything  like  disparagement  to  the  existing  divine  revelation.    The  devel- 
^  opment  claimed  is  that  of  a  recondite  ^meaning  in  the  Word,  which  stands  in 
^  direct  relation  to  a  parallel  development  in  the  p.sychological  nature  of  man.  In 
V,-.  its  true  character  it  is  not,  with  the  exception  of  the  first  few  chapters  of  Genesis, 
the  abolishing  or  superseding  of  the  literal  or  historical  sense  which  has  always 
been  assigned  to  the  sacred  record.    It  is  simply  an  advance  upon,  or  a  super- 
~ /[addition  to,  that  sense,  and  what  objection  can  there  be  to  a  new  revelation  of 
.  Uhe  inner  meaning  of  the  Word,  when  it  is  in  effect  but  a  new  revelation  of  a  con-i 
•  (stituent  principle  of  our  nature,  to  which  that  meaning  has  a  special  relation 
•  1  j   You  will  read  in  what  I  have  now  said,  an  answer  to  your  queries  respecting 
Ijthe  apostles.     "They,"  you  remark,  "had  not  Swedenborg's  discernment. 
^They  have  not  understood  spiritual  things  ashe  understood  them.    The  apostles 
had  the  promise  of  being  guided  into  all  the  truth.    But  did  they  ever  understand 
the  word  of  God  as  Swedenborg  did.'    When  and  where  did  they  give  such  in- 
,  ^.  terpretations  of  the  Scrijotures  as  he  did  .'"    Undoubtedly  no  where.    But  what 
■nJ  then .'    Does  it  follow  from  this  that  his  interpretations  are  not  true     Does  "  all 
^  the  truth"  into  which  they  were  to  be  guided  comprise  every  form  and  depart- 
C  ment  of  truth — astronomical,  geological,  and  psychological Did  Paul  interpret 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  as  Lyell,  and  Silliman,  and  Hitchcock,  and  the  mass/ 
^  of  modern  divines,  interpret  them     Did  he  understand  the  sun  and  moon's  stand- 
ing  still  at  the  command  of  Joshua  as  Newton  understood  it,  and  as  you  and  I 
understand  it Does  not  the  progress  of  science,  as  it  evolves  from  age  to  age, 
c  compel  an  altered  construction  of  the  letter  of  holy  writ  on  a  variety  of  subjects? 
^  Can  any  solid  reason  be  assigned  why  the  progress  of  Anthropology  should  not 
^  produce  the  same  effect  ?    May  not  a  fuller  development  of  the  internal  powers 
^  and  faculties  of  the  human  soul  require  a  new  construction  of  the  literal  purport 
i  of  a  multitude  of  passages  in  the  sacred  books  ?    Is  the  clear  and  conclusive  ex- 
pose  of  ^e  constitution  of  our  nature  in  these  respects  a  virtual  disparagement 
^  of  the  Bible  in  its  present  form  and  its  hitherto  established  interpretation  ?    Is  it 
justly  chargeable  upon  the  modern  Astronomy  and  Geology  that  they  do  in  effect 
impeach  the  pious  of  former  ages  of  gross  ignorance  on  this  head Were  those 
holy  men  responsible  for  not  knowing  what  they  could  not  know  in  the  circum- 
stances in  which  they  were  placed  .'    And  so  as  to  the  great  psychological  truths 
which  Swedenborg  has  developed — are  he  and  his  adherents  to  be  loaded  with 
obloquy  because  they  claim  the  possession  of  a  knowledge,  on  this  score,  which 
was  no  more  in  the  reach  of  the  apostles  than  the  results  of  the  modern  sciences 
of  Astronomy,  Geology,  and  Chemistry .'    Is  it  not  clear  that  the  objection  re- 
dounds against  the  Divine  Wisdom  for  not  granting  to  one  age  what  is  accorded 
to  another And  is  this  either  piously  or  philosophically  urged .'   Is  no  room  to  be 
allowed  for  the  gradual  unfolding  of  the  great  truths  of  the  universe  ?   May  not 
the  Supreme  take  his  own  time  for  bringing  into  obvious  harmony  the  myste- 
ries of  the  outer  and  the  imier  world  ? 


44 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


The  fact  is,  it  is  beyond  question  that  Swedenborg's  assertion  of  a  spiritual 
sense  in  the  Word  flows  directly  from  his  disclosures  of  the  spiritual  nature  of 
men  as  youchsafed'^o  him  in  his  converse  with  the  world  unseen.  Accordingly 
the  only  effectual  mode  of  refuting  it  is,  by  impugning  the  credibility  of  his  re- 
lations on  that  head.  This  you  are  prompted  to  do  by  contrasting  Paul's  mod- 
est silence  in  respect  to  the  things  seen  and  heard  by  him  in  his  rapture  to  the 
third  heavens  with  Swedenborg's  voluminous  recitals  in  his  Memorabilia  of  ce- 
lestial and  infernal  wonders. 

"  Saint  Paul  had  the  privilege  of  visiting  the  third  heavens,  and  of  hearing  and 
seeing  wonderful  things  there.  But  his  modesty  was  such,  that  he  was  silent  on 
the  subject  for  fourteen  years,  and  never  mentioned  the  fact  which  so  distin- 
guished him  above  others,  until  he  was  compelled  to  do  it  in  self-defence.  And 
then  he  mentioned  it  only  once,  and  that  hesitatingly,  and  with  evident  embar- 
rassment, and  as  though  it  belonged  to  another  man.  It  is  certain,  that  he  did 
nothing,  in  consequence  of  that  revelation,  in  the  way  of  teaching  that  new  sense 
of  Scripture,  or  any  of  those  new  lessons,  which  we  are  now  to  learn  from  Swe- 
denborg.  And  what  can  be  the  reason  of  this  According  to  Swedenborg,  the 
angels  have  the  Scriptures  in  their  possession.  Why  did  they  not  instruct  Paul 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word  of  God  Is  it  to  be  supposed  that  they  were  then 
ignorant  of  it,  and  that,  by  the  diligent  study  of  exegesis,  they  have  since  ac- 
quired the  higher  knowledge,  which  they  communicated  to  the  prophet  of  the 
New  Church Or  was  it  a  fact,  that  Paul's  visit  in  heaven  was  not  long  enough 
to  enable  him  to  get  an  insight  into  the  deeper  mysteries  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
that  these  mysteries  were  kept  in  reserve,  till  a  man  of  more  distinguished  talents 
and  acquirements  and  a  higher  destiny  should  be  raised  up,  and  should  have 
the  advantage  of  dwelling  in  the  heavens  for  a  long  course  of  years,  and  should 
thus  have  an  opportunity,  which  Paul  never  had,  to  learn  what  no  eye  before 
had  seen,  and  no  ear  had  heard,  and  no  heart  conceived  ?  Or  did  Paul,  if  sup- 
posed to  have  had  information  nearly  equal  to  that  of  Swedenborg,  still  judge  it 
proper  to  keep  the  more  spiritual  sense  of  Scripture  which  he  had  learned,  a 
profound  secret .'  And  did  he  judge  thus,  because  he  thought  the  human  mind 
not  yet  prepared  to  understand  the  sublimer  mysteries  of  revelation  Or  was 
he  so  occupied  with  preaching  the  plain,  literal  sense  of  Scripture,  and  founding 
churches,  that  he  had  no  time  to  dive  mto  deeper  things  Or  was  his  manner 
of  thinking  and  writing  and  speaking  such,  as  not  to  be  so  well  suited  to  things 
of  a  celestial  nature  Or  were  the  languages  which  he  used,  that  is,  the  Greek 
and  Hebrew,  less  adapted  than  the  Latin,  in  which  Swedenborg  wrote,  to  the 
more  .spiritual  truths  of  the  New  Church .'  Or  must  we  conclude  that  Paul's 
judging  it  not  lawful  or  possible  to  make  known  the  things  which  he  had  heard, 
was  a  mistake  ?  There  is  certainly  something  very  remarkable  in  this  matter. 
Paul,  an  Apostle  of  Jesus  Chri-st,  who  was  commissioned  to  teach  the  tr^hs  con- 
tained in  the  Scriptures  to  Jews  and  Gentiles,  and  who  was  caught  up  to  heaven 
that  he  might  be  better  qualified  for  his  work,  has  not  directly  and  expressly 
given  us  any  account  of  the  particular  things  which  he  heard  or  saw,  but  says 
only  that  they  were  unspeakable ;  while  Swedenborg  freely  and  fully  relates  the 
familiar  talk  he  had  with  the  angels  on  all  sorts  of  subjects.  There  was  nothing 
either  impossible  or  inexpedient  for  him  to  utter.  He  could  teach  not  only  the 
inner  sense  of  what  the  Scriptures  declare,  but  many  things  in  addition — such 
as  the  geography  of  the  heavens,  the  north  and  the  south,  the  east  and  the  west, 
the  houses  and  the  gardens,  the  fruits  and  the  flowers,  the  different  societies  of 
angels,  the  bodies  and  the  clothing  of  dead  men,  their  countenances,  their  limbs, 
their  senses,  their  caps  and  turbans,  the  marriages  of  men  and  women,  &c., 
although  all  was  spiritual.  *  *  •  He  could  fill  books  with  these  matters,  more 
than  four  times  as  large  as  the  Scriptures  which  he  undertook  to  explain.  In 
regard  to  this  wliole  affair,  there  certainly  was  a  most  noticeable  difference  be- 
tween him  and  the  Apostle  Paul ;  the  latter  being  so  modest  and  reservetl  as  to 
what  he  had  heard  in  heaven,  the  former  so  surpassingly  communicative;  the 
one  referring  to  it  only  once,  and  that  very  reluctantly,  and  from  necessity,  and 
in  the  person  of  another ;  and  then  telling  us  that  he  had  a  special  and  mortify- 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


45 


ing  visitation  from  God,  which  he  calls  a  thonl^in  the  flesh,  to  prevent  his  being 
lifted  up ;  the  other  referring  to  the  subj^~continually,  and  talking  endlessly, 
and  with  marvellous  repetitions,  about  the  great  things  and  the  little  things 
which  he  saw  and  heard  in  the  otiier  world,  having  had  revelations  so  much 
more  abundant  than  Paul's  that  we  should  suppose  that  many  thorns  in  the  flesh 
would  have  been  necessary  to  prevent  him  from  being  exalted  above  measure." 
—p.  30-34. 

The  scope  of  the  reasoning  throughout  this  paragraph  is  to  set  forth  the  >>.^ 
improbability  of  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word  being  communicated  to  Sweden- 
borg  when  it  was  withheld  from  Paul,  notwithstanding  that  he  too  was  privi- 
leged with  admission  to  the  celestial  abodes.    The  implication  is  very  plain, 
that  Swedenborg's  claims  are  highly  presumptuous  when  set  by  the  side  of  those 
of  Paul.    But  it  is  certainly  conceivable  that  the  end  to  be  answered  by  the  tem- 
porary translation  of  one  person  into  the  sphere  of  spirits  may  be  different  from 
that  which  was  to  be  accomplished  by  the  bestowment  of  the  same  privilege 
upon  another,  and  under  totally  different  circumstances.    The  extatic  vision  oft  f 
Paul  was  evidently  of  very  short  duration,  and,  as  far  as  appears  from  the  nar-  7 
•ative,  was  designed  solely  for  his  personal  benefit,  without  reference  to  the  in-, 
^(^truction  of  Christians,  whereas  Swedenborg's  preternatural  state  was  continued  o 

to  him  for  near  thirty  years,  and  that  too,  if  he  is  to  be  believed,  for  the  expressf  T  •  ■ 
.  purpose  of  communicating  the  information  thence  derived  to  the  world.  ^ 
As,  therefore,  it  does  not  appear  that  Paul's  rapture  was  designed  for  any  such 
end  as  is  claimed  for  Swedenborg's  illumination,  I  see  not  that  any  inference 
adverse  to  this  claim  can  be  fairly  drawn  from  it.    I  am  unable  to  perceive  any 
intrinsic  necessity  that  a  supernatural  revelation  alleged  to  have  been  made  to 
one  person,  at  one  age  of  the  world,  must  be  rejected  as  fabulous  because  not 
made  to  another,  at  another  age.    The  question  is  to  be  decided,  as  a  questionl  . 
of  fact,  upon  its  own  appropriate  evidence.    If  the  poss/6//rt(/ of  such  an  occur-3  ~- 
rence  is  foreclosed  by  any  exjiress  declaration  of  Jehovah  himself,  then  indeed  .v 
we  are  saved  the  necessity  of  any  further  inquiry  on  the  subject.    Nothing  re- 
mains but  to  reject  Swedenborg's  pretended  visions  as  an  arrant  imposture  or  a 
pitiable  delusion.    But  no  intimation  of  the  kind  can  be  alleged  from  the  sacred 
Scriptures.    Not  the  least  hint  is  afforded  that  the  Most  High  has  shut  himself 
up  from  bestowing  on  his  creatures  new  measures  of  revelation  from  the  spirit- 
ual world.*   For  aught  that  is  to  be  read  in  the  Old  Testament  or  the  New,  just 
such  disclosures  maijhe  made  to  men  as  Swedenborg  declares  were  made  to  him, 
and  if  so  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  the  fact  of  a  spiritual  sense  pertaining  to 


*  I  should  have  been  very  glad,  for  one,  if  Mr.  Barnes  had  given  his  authority  for  as- 
serting what  follows  in  his  note  on  2  Cor.  12,  4  ; — "  We  have  all  the  truth  which  we 
shall  ever  have  about  heaven  here  below.  No  other  messenger  will  come  ;  none  of  the 
pious  dead  will  return.  If  men,  therefore,  are  not  willing  to  be  saved  in  view  of  the 
truth  which  they  have,  they  must  be  lost.  God  will  communicate  no  more."  This  is 
evidently  spoken  without  any  design  to  include  Swedenborg's  disclosures  in  the  general 
body  of  truth  to  which  he  alludes,  and  to  which  we  are  to  expect  no  additions  from  the 
Most  High  himself.  The  assertion  is  plainly  unwarranted.  It  is  what  no  man  can 
affirm,  in  the  absence  of  any  divine  declaration  on  the  subject,  unless  he  is  prepared  to 
say  that  no  adequate  reasons  can  ever  hereafter  exist  for  the  communication  of  new 
truth  to  the  world  respecting  heaven  and  hell  and  the  lile  beyond  death.  It  may,  I 
think,  be  seriously  doubted,  whether  Mr.  B.  is  in  possession  of  a  sufficient  amount  of 
knowledge  in  respect  to  the  divine  counsels  to  enable  him  to  make  this  assertion  with 
much  confidence. 


46 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


the  Word  may  have  entered  into  them,  inasmuch  as  it  rests  upon  the  spiritual 
nature  of  man,  as  unfolded  to  him  in  his  state  of  translation,  and  which  it  was 
a  great  part  of  his  mission  to  develope  to  the  world.  That  this  sense  should  have 
been  made  known  to  Paul,  does  not  by  any  means  follow,  so  long  as  it  cannot 
be  shown  that  the  end  of  his  e.xtacy  was  to  enlighten  him  into  the  philosophy 
of  our  being,  instead  of  affording  consolation  and  encouragement  in  the  midst  of 
his  severe  trials  as  a  Christian.  Your  long  string  of  interrogatories,  tlierefore, 
bearing  on  this  head  seems  quite  irrelevant  to  the  scope  of  the  argument.  They 
can  possess  no  force  except  from  the  antecedent  probability,  that  if  such  a  reve- 
lation as  Swedenborg  claims  to  have  been  made  to  himself  were  made  at  all,  it 
would  have  been  made  to  Paul  also,  and  this  is  but  another  form  of  maintaining 
that  Lifiuite  Wisdom  must  necessarily  make  all  its  revelations  at  once,  or  in  one 
age,  instead  of  observing  the  order  of  the  gradual  evolution  of  the  human  mind 
and  the  different  exigences  of  the  race  at  different  periods.  If  this  be  serioxisly 
maintained,  the  whole  controversy  assumes  a  new  aspect,  and  though  I  am 
entirely  willing  to  meet  you  on  this  ground,  it  is  plainly  inappropriate  to  the 
object  of  the  present  discussion. 

As  the  above  objection  founded  upon  the  case  of  Paul  has  been  very  largely 
and  elaborately  considered  by  Mr.  Clissold  in  his  Letter  to  Archbishop  Whately, 
1  beg  leave  to  transcribe  one  or  two  paragraphs  in  this  connection.  "The 
Essays  refer  us  to  the  case  of  St.  Paul.  They  speak  of  the  celestial  vision  with 
which  he  had  been  favored,  and  observe,  that  he  alludes,  witli  the  utmost  pos- 
sible brevity,  to  his  being  caught  up  into  paradise  and  hearing  unspeakable 
words,  without  relating  any  particulars  of  the  vision:  this  circumstance  the  rea- 
der is  naturally  led  to  contrast  with  Swedenborg's  "  copious  and  distinct  revelations," 
his  "  visit  to  the  celestial  abodes,"  &c.,  of  all  which  it  is  said  "  he  gives  minute 
descriptions:"  it  is  directly  contrasted,  likewise,  with  the  narratives  of  Mahomed ; 
and  the  Essays  observe, — "  It  is  truly  edifying  to  compare  this  with  Mahomed's 
long  and  circumstantial  description  of  his  i^retended  visit  to  heaven,  tilled  with 
a  multitude  of  needless  particulars,  calculated  to  gratify  an  appetite  for  the  mar- 
vellous ;"  the  narratives  of  Swedenborg  being  thus  obviously  classed  with  those 
of  Mahomed.  Now,  with  regard  to  the  minute  descriptions  of  the  celestial 
abodes,  pretended  to  be  given  by  Swedenborg,  pardon  the  liberty  1  take  in  ob- 
serving, that  I  am  not  aware  that  any  such  are  to  be  found  in  any  part  of  his 
works.  Swedenborg  tells  us  that  there  are  three  heavens,  the  celestial,  the  spir- 
itual, and  the  natural ;  and  that  of  the.se,  the  third  heaven  or  the  highest  is  the 
celestial,  being  the  same  with  that  into  which  St.  Paul  declares  he  was  caught 
up.  The  celestial  abodes  are  the  abodes  in  the  celestial  heavens ;  and  into  these 
Swedenborg  observes  that  he  was  rarely  permitted  to  enter ;  whence,  so  far  from 
giving  long  and  minute  descriptions  upon  this  subject,  he  is  silent  with  regard  to 
most  of  what  he  there  saw  and  heard ;  declaring,  like  St.  Paul,  that  it  would  be 
incomprehensible  or  incredible ;  consequently,  on  the  point  upon  which  the 
Essays  have  contrasted  the  writings  of  St.  Paul  wuh  those  of  Swedenborg,  there 
is  much  more  of  remarkable  coincidence  than  of  contrast.  With  regard  to  the 
abodes  in  the  spiritual  heavens,  little  is  stated,  compared  with  what  Your  Grace 
justly  observes  an  enthusiast  or  impostor  would  probably  have  done  ;  and  what 
is  stated,  is  staled  in  a  way,  which,  as  I  have  already  shown,  and  shall  in  the 
sequel  have  furtlier  to  show,  renders  it  impossible  for  it  to  have  come  either  from 
au  enthusiast  or  impostor. — Clissold's  Letter,  p.  122. 


i 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


47 


He  subsequently  quotes  the  following  passage  from  the  Essays,  which  I  here 
introduce  in  order  to  make  way  for  his  reply.  "  But  the  Essays  observe,  '  It  is 
plain  that  nothing  could  have  been  more  gratifying  to  the  curiosity  of  all  who 
had  an  interest  in  the  subject,  nothing  more  likely  even  to  allure  fresh  converts, 
than  a  glowing  description  of  the  joys  of  heaven ;  it  would  have  been  easily  be- 
lieved, too,  by  those  who  gave  credit  to  the  writer,  as  it  is  plain  Paul  supposed 
the  Corinthians  did  ;  it  would  have  been  very  easy,  again,  for  an  impostor  to  give 
loose  to  his  fancy,  in  inventing  such  a  description  ;  and  to  an  enthusiast  it  would 
liave  been  unavoidable ;  he  who  was  passing  off  his  day-dreams  for  revelations  on  himself 
as  well  as  on  others,  would  have  been  sure  to  dream  largely  on  such  a  subject.  Why  then 
did  not  Paul  do  anything  of  the  kind  I  answer,  because  he  was  not  an  impos- 
tor, nor  an  enthusiast,  but  taught  only  what  had  been  actually  revealed  to  him, 
and  what  he  was  commissioned  to  reveal  to  others.' 

"  It  is  asked,  why  St.  Paul  did  not  do  anything  of  the  kind  May  I  answer  this 
question  by  asking, '  Why  is  it  that  St.  John  did  But  it  will  be  said,  St.  John 
did  not  give  a  full,  minute,  and  engaging  account.  St.  John  wrote  in  types  or 
symbols,  and  a  type  will  contam  as  much  in  a  short  compass,  as,  if  explained, 
volumes  could  comprise.  Had  Swedenborg  given  the  symbols  only,  without 
their  explanation,  he  might,  in  most  instances,  have  been  as  concise  as  the  proph- 
ets. To  draw  the  comparison  fairly  between  the  two,  the  interpretations  of  the 
symbols  in  Scripture  ought  to  be  included ;  and  if  this  be  done,  the  argument,  I 
presume,  will  be  seen  to  be  invalid.  But  the  narratives  of  the  prophets,  it  is 
said,  are  not  muiute.  Now  T  reply,  that  some,  at  least,  appear  to  be  quite  as 
minute  as  those  of  Swedenborg ;  and  this  for  a  good  reason.  If  the  objects  pre- 
sented to  the  spiritual  vision  be  symbolical,  then,  for  the  purposes  of  interpreta- 
tion, a  minute  description  of  these  objects  is  as  necessary,  as,  for  the  same  pur- 
poses, a  minute  transcript  of  a  hieroglypliical  sentence  ;  for  if  one  hieroglyphic 
were  omitted,  the  meaning  of  the  whole  might  be  altered  or  left  imperfect. 
This  we  may  see  more  particularly  exemplified  in  St.  John's  description  of  the 
New  Jerusalem. 

"  Why,  then,  was  St.  Paul  silent  as  to  his  vision  in  the  third  heaven  Be- 
cause he  was  not  commissioned  to  reveal  to  others  what  he  had  heard  and  seen. 
Why  was  St.  John  not  silent Because  the  Lord  said  to  him, '  AVhat  thou  seest 
write  in  a  book,  and  send  it  unto  the  seven  churches  which  are  in  Asia.'  The 
question,  therefore,  I  respectfully  submit,  does  not  depend  upon  any  antecedent 
views  we  may  entertain  of  the  propriety  or  impropriety  of  a  full,  minute,  or  en- 
gaging account ;  but  upon  the  fact  of  what  the  writers  themselves  actually  saw, 
and  were  divinely  commissioned  to  reveal  to  others  ;  and,  therefore,  if  the  fore- 
going objection  be  in  any  manner  urged  against  Swedenborg,  it  can  be  valid 
only  on  the  ground,  that  he  never  had  any  intercourse  with  the  spiritual  world, 
or  never  had  any  divuie  commission  to  communicate  what  he  saw, — which  is 
merely  begging  the  question." — Id.  p.  123  and  126. 

To  all  this  I  would  add  that  the  original  word  by  which  Paul  expresses  the 
"  unlawfulness"  of  uttering  what  he  heard  and  saw  in  the  third  heavens  implies 
also  "  impossibility,"  and  in  this  intimation  he  agrees  with  Swedenborg  who 
frequently  alludes  to  the  incompetency  of  hitman  language  to  convey  any  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  wonderful  things  of  the  angelic  heaven. 

In  view  of  the  "  abundance  of  revelations  "  affirmed  by  Swedenborg  to  have 


48 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


been  made  to  him,  you  say,  "  we  should  suppose  that  many  thorns  in  the  flesh 
would  have  been  necessary  to  prewnt  him  from  being  exalted  beyond  measure." 
Now  I  would  suggest  it  as  possible,  that  there  might  have  been  an  intrinsic 
native  difference  in  the  characters  of  the  two  men  which  rendered  necessary  a 
discipline  in  the  one  case  that  was  not  so  much  called  for  in  the  other.  This 
idea  is  perhaps  favored  by  the  verdict  of  Mr.  Barnes  (in  loc.)  "  There  is  abun- 
dant reason  to  believe  that  Paul  was  naturally  a  proud  man.  He  was  by  nature 
self-confident ;  trusting  in  his  o^\ti  talents  and  attainments,  and  eminently  ambi- 
tious. When  he  became  a  Christian,  therefore,  one  of  his  besetting  sins  would 
be  pride  ;  and  as  he  had  been  peculiarly  favored  in  his  call  to  the  apostleship ; 
in  his  success  as  a  preacher ;  in  the  standing  which  he  had  among  the  other 
apostles,  and  in  the  revelations  imparted  to  hun,  there  was  also  peculiar  danger 
that  he  would  become  self-confident  and  proud  of  his  attainment." — Barnes  on 
Cor.  p.  354.  Jf  it  be  said  that  this  could  only  be  predicated  of  Paul's  natural  char- 
acter, and  that  he  became  entirely  another  man  after  his  conversion,  still  it  would 
seem  that  the  vicious  taint  in  his  spirit  was  not  yet  wholly  removed — that  it  was 
still  lurking  within  him,  even  at  the  time  when  he  was  thus  favored  with  admis- 
sion into  heaven — and  if  we  could  suppose  the  bare  possibility  that  it  remained 
with  him  to  the  last,  and  went  with  him  into  the  spiritual  world,  it  would 
give  at  least  a  semblance  of  probability  to  what  Swedenborg  declares  of  his  state 
in  that  world,  which  is  certainly  very  much  in  accordance  with  I\Ir.  Barnes' 
testimony  cited  above  respecting  him. 

You  Eire  pleased,  in  this  pEirt  of  your  work,  to  relieve  the  gravity  of  ab- 
stract discussion/  by  reciting  a  "  vision "  of  your  owti.  Though  dignified 
with  the  title  of  "  vision,"  to  bring  it  somewhat  more  into  parellelism  with 
those  which  you  would  ascribe  to  Swedenborg,  I  shall  still  venture  to  re- 
gard it  as  a  dream,  and  that  you  found  a  warrant  for  tlie  recital  of  it  ui  the  words 
of  Scripture,  "  he  that  hath  a  dream,  let  him  tell  a  dream."   It  is  thus  related : — 

This  difference  between  Paul  and  Swedenborg  so  impressed  my  mind  a  short 
time  since,  that  I  too,  in  fact,  had  a  vision.  And  yet,  as  I  am  not  gifted  in  that 
way  at  all  like  Swedenborg,  my  vision  was  quite  moderate  and  tame  compared 
with  the  marvellous  visions  which  came  before  his  active  and  illuminated  mind. 
In  the  thoughts  of  my  head  upon  my  bed,  when  deep  sleep  falleth  upon  men,  I 
actually  saw,  very  clearly  and  distinctly,  my  venerated  friend.  Dr.  Dwight,  and 
conversed  with  him  familiarly,  as  I  used  to  do  whUe  he  lived.  Nor  did  it  occur 
to  me,  that  he  was  dead,  nor  did  he  .seem  to  know  that  he  was  not  just  as  he  had 
been  on  earth.  I  said  to  him,  '  Dr.  Dvvight,  I  have  lately  been  reading  the  ac- 
count which  Swedenborg  gives  of  what  he  saw  and  heard  in  heaven,  particu- 
larly the  revelations  made  to  him  of  the  inner  sense  of  the  Scriptures.  The 
Apo.stle  Paul  was  once  translated  into  heaven.  But  it  seems  that  fourteen  years 
passed  away  before  he  made  any  mention  of  that  distinguished  privilege  of  his. 
And  although  he  was  doubtless  wonderfully  enlightened  and  confirmed  in  the 
principles  of  Christianity  by  that  celestial  vision,  he  did  not  attempt  to  tell  the 
world  the  things  which  he  had  seen  and  heard,  saying,  that  they  were  unspeak- 
able. But  Swedenborg  tells  hundreds  of  long  stories,  giving  the  particulars  of 
the  free  conversations  he  had  with  the  angels  for  many  years,  and  describing  tlie 
spiritual  meaning  of  Scripture  which  he  there  learned,  and  the  various  objects  he 
saw  in  different  parts  of  the  upper  world.  Is  there  not,  in  all  this,  a  most  re- 
markable difference  between  Swedenborg  and  the  Apostle  Paul Dr.  Dwight 
gravely  replied, '  there  surely  is.' " — p.  34. 

Now  I  agree  entirely  with  the  Doctor.    He  gave,  in  ray  opinion,  the  right  an- 


\ 

I 

I 

( 
{ 


X  . 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


49 


swer,  and  it  affords  me  pleasure  to  believe  that  he  had,  in  all  probability,  attained 
to  a  very  correct  understanding  of  the  points  in  which  the  difference  consisted. 
I  only  regret  that  the  dialogue  closed  so  abruptly,  and  that  you  had  not  the  op- 
portunity of  inquiring  of  him  whether  there  were  not  amply  sufficient  reasons  for 
the  difierence  in  the  two  cases.  Should  the  "  vision"  ever  chance  to  be  repeated, 
I  could  fain  hope  that  the  conversation  might  be  resumed  just  at  the  point  where 
it  was  broken  off. 

But  leaving  Paul  and  Dr.  Dwight  you  return  to  the  consideration  of  the  spiritual 
sense  of  the  Word.  In  alluding  to  my  advocacy  of  Swedenborg  you  say,  that  I 
do  not  avail  myself  of  the  circumstance  of  his  supernatural  illumination  as  a 
proof  of  his  principles — tliat  my  reliance  is  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  on  the  nature  of 
those  principles — that  to  vindicate  Swedenborg's  writings,!  appeal  to  conscious- 
ness, to  p-sychological  facts,  which  I  esteem  clear  and  certain — all  which  is  un- 
doubtedly true,  and  you  thus  make  up  the  issue. 

"  What  better,  then,  can  I  do,  than  to  show  you,  by~  a  sufficient  number  of 
specimens,  in  what  manner  our  author  interprets  that  portion  of  the  Bible,  which 
he  receives  as  the  word  of  God,  and  then  to  refer  the  whole  to  your  sober  judg- 
ment. My  examples  will  be  derived  from  the  first  volume  of  his  Heavenly  Ar- 
cana, and  his  work  on  the  Apocalypse." — p.  35. 

You  accordingly  proceed  to  a  somewhat  extended  analysis  of  the  expositions, 
contained  in  the  Arcana,  of  several  of  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis,  with  the  view 
to  hold  up  his  spiritual  mode  of  interpreting  this  portion  of  the  book,  in  revolting 
contrast  with  what  you  deem  the  more  consistent  and  rational  mode  of  literal  in- 
terpretation.   You  then  go  on  to  say  ; 

"  You  will  keep  in  mind,  that  this  mode  of  allegorizing  or  spiritualizing  Scrip- 
ture is  now  presented  before  you  for  your  sober  consideration.  The  appeal  is  to 
your  reason  and  common  sense.  The  question  to  be  decided  is,  whether  there 
is  internal  evidence  of  the  truth  of  these  interpretations.  This  is  the  question 
proposed  to  us  by  Professor  Bush.  He  does  not  wish  us  to  rely  upon  the  au- 
thority of  Swedenborg  as  an  inspired  man,  but  to  look  at  the  intrinsic  excellence 
of  what  his  writings  contain.  Is  it  then  obvious  to  reason  and  common  sense, 
that  the  account  of  the  creation,  above  referred  to,  was  intended  to  convey  such 
a  meaning  as  Swedenborg  supposes  ?" — p.  38. 

Substantially  the  same  queries,  somewhat  varied  in  form,  repeatedly  occur  in 
different  parts  of  your  work  and  as  I  hope  to  propound  an  answer  that  will  cover 
the  whole  ground,  I  will  here  cite  some  of  the  principal  passages. 

"  If  all  this  were  a  matter  of  direct  revelation  from  God,  then  we  should  be 
bound,  as  Christians,  to  believe  it.  But,  according  to  Professor  Bush,  we  are  to 
look  for  an  intrinsic  reasonableness  and  excellence  in  these  explanations  of  the 
word  of  God.  But  we  look  in  vain.  Reason  and  common  sense  can  see  noth- 
ing in  such  explanations  but  groundless  and  extravagant  fancies.  Reason 
searches  for  the  grounds  of  any  opinion ;  it  is  very  much  inclined  to  inquire  fqB><' 
the  why,  and  the  wherefore.  And  in  the  present  case,  it  would  like  to  ask,  why  does^ 
the  river  Pison  signify  the  intelligence  of  faith  from  love  And  why  does  Gihon 
signify  the  knowledge  of  all  things  relating  to  faith  and  love  Wht  is  it  that  the 
first  relates  to  the  vnll,  and  the  second  to  the  understanding  ?  Why  does  Hiddekel 
signify  r^a^on,  and  Euphrates,  science?' — p.  43. 

"  Clissold,  one  of  the  ablest  advocates  of  Swedenborg,  speaking  oithe  truth  of 
the  revelation  of  the  internal  sense  of  the  Word  as  unfolded  by  Swedenborg,  says,  '  the 
evidence  of  it  stands  upon  its  own  basis'  I  suppose  he  means  the  same  as  Professor 
Bush  means,  when  he  so  frequently  asserts,  that  in  judging  of  Swedenborg's 


50 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


principles,  we  are  to  look  at  their  intrinsic  excellence — that  the  appeal  is  to  be 
made  to  reason,  common  sense,  and  consciousness.  Now  I  inquire  of  reason, 
or  common  sense,  why  these  interpretations  are  adopted,  and  why,  in  any  case, 
one  of  them  is  adopted  rather  than  another.'  Professor  Bush  says,  '  the  system 
of  Swedenborg  insists  upon  such  an  interpretaiion  of  the  word  as  shall  accord 
with  the  fair  and  unimpeachable  conclusions  of  reason,  with  the  known  laws, 
facts  and  principles  of  nature,  and  with  internal  consciousness.'  1  ask  then,  do 
Swedenborg's  interpretations  agree  with  this  standard  ?  As  the  appeal  is  to  be 
made  to  reason,  and  reference  to  be  had  solely  to  the  intrinsic  reasonableness 
and  excellence  of  Swedenborg's  writings;  then,  of  course,  we  are  not  to  be  in- 
fluenced by  the  authority  which  he  claims  as  a  divinely  commissioned  interpret- 
er of  the  Scriptures.  If,  however,  the  reason  to  which  the  appeal  is  to  be  made, 
means  the  illuminated  reason  of  the  man  of  the  New  Church ;  then  the  reason  of 
others  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter,  and  the  question  would  be  why 
any  others  are  called  upon  to  judge." — p.  55. 

"  The  question  returns,  and  returns  times  without  number, — what  is  there  iu 
reason,  or  consciousness,  or  common  sense,  or  philosophy,  or  philology,  which 
could  lead  to  such  interpretations  of  the  word  of  God,  or  which  can  justify  us  iu 
receiving  them  Is  there  anything  in  the  language  itself,  which  indicates  such 
a  meaning Is  there  anything  in  other  parts  of  Scripture,  or  in  the  nature  of  the 
subjects  introduced,  which  demands  a  spiritual  or  allegorical  sense  of  what  is 
contained  in  the  chapters  of  Genesis  above-mentioned Are  not  the  things  re- 
lated from  the  5th  to  the  13th  chapters  as  credible,  as  those  related  in  the  sub- 
sequent parts  of  the  Bible,  or  in  any  other  ancient  history  And  may  we  not  as 
properly  say,  that  all  history,  and  all  the  events  which  take  place,  are  to  be  in- 
terpreted spiritually,  and  have  an  inner  sense,  according  to  the  system  of  corres- 
pondences ?  And  then  how  shall  we  make  out  the  correspondences Shall 
we  look  for  internal  evidence .'  Shall  we  rely  upon  the  intuitions  of  the  reason 
No.  We  must  follow  Swedenborg.  But  how  did  Swedenborg  proceed How 
Uiid  he  happen  to  think  that  the  six  days  work  in  the  creation  denote  the 'six 
'(states  of  a  man  passing  through  the  process  of  regeneration — that  sun,  moon  and 
^stars  signify  love  and  faith — birds,  things  intellectual — creeping  things,  scientifics, 
&c.  ?  How  did  he  happen  to  think  of  all  these  wonderful  arcana,  which  no  man, 
uninspired  or  inspired,  ever  thought  of  before  the  year  1747  How  did  he  hap- 
pen to  think  of  these  things Why,  the  angels  told  htm-'' — p.  57. 

Now  in  reply  to  all  this,  and  much  more  like  it,  I  still  adhere  to  the  position, 
that  it  rests  upon  principles  which  apjieal  to  reason  and  consciousness.  But 
what  are  these  principles They  are  those  by  which  the  truth  of  Swedenborg's 
general  claim  is  to  be  determined.  I  have  no  where  intimated  that  the  sound- 
ness of  his  interpretations  is,  in  all  cases,  intuitively  apparent,  or  that  it  is  con- 
firmed by  direct  internal  evidence.  Far  from  it.  Indeed  he  very  frequently  gives 
ixs  to  understand,  that  the  latent  spiritual  sense,  in  a  multitude  of  passages,  is  by 
no  means  obvious  from  the  sense  of  the  letter,  and  that  it  does  not  come  to  the 
perception  of  one  who  is  not  acquainted  with  the  J'undamental  law  on  which  it 
rests.  The  discovery  and  announcement  of  this  ?aM;  is  the  main  feature  of  his 
'  claim,  and  I  say  that  the  truth  of  it  is  to  be  determined  at  the  tribunal  of  reason 
,  rand  consciousness.  It  is  a  law  which  he  affirms  to  result  from  the  constitution 
Sof  the  human  mind.  It  is  a  grand  psychological  fact,  and  though  he  professes 
to  have  received  the  knowledge  of  it  by  means  of  admission  into  the  world  of 
spirits,  yet  as  this  will  be  granted  to  be  possible,  the  evidence  of  its  reality  is  ap- 
prehensible by  the  exercise  of  our  natural  faculties,  and  we  have  no  hesitation 
to  say  tliat  the  evidence  is  sufficient  to  satisfy  any  candid  mind  that  will  ade- 
quately weigh  it.  We  are  competent  to  judge,  from  the  data  presented,  whether 
the  structure  of  the  human  mind  is  what  he  affirms  it  to  be,  and  this  we  do  by 
comparing  the  dictates  of  our  reason  and  consciousness  with  his  averments.  He 


( 


I 


see 'iy  /  cwTi:^. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


51 


distinctly  asserts  that  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word  grows  out  of  the  spiritual 
nature  of  man — that  just  in  proportion  as  this  nature  is  developed  an  interior 
sense  is  recognized  under  the  veil  of  the  letter, — and  that  the  law  of  corres- 
pondence between  natural  and  spiritual  things  is  the  law  which  guides  and 
governs  the  interpretation  of  the  language  employed  ui  the  inditing  of  the  Scrip-J 
tures.  If,  for  instance,  Swedenborg  gives  me  good  reasons  to  believe  that  he 
had  good  reasons  for  asserting,  that  by  the  law  of  correspondence  the  word 
"  earth"  or  " land"  signifies,  to  a  spiritual  perception,  ^//c  c/iurc/t— that  "horse" 
signifies  the  understanding,  and  "  water"  truth— that  a  "  tree"  signifies  perception, 
and  a  "  sword  "  combat  of  truth  with  falsity— I  see  not  why  I  should  refuse  to  ac- 
cept these  interpretations,  even  though  I  may  be  unable  myself,  for  the  present, 
to  perceive  distincdy  in  what  manner  they  flow  from  the  asserted  law.  He  af- 
firms, that  the  terms  "  earth,"  "  horse,"  "  water,"  "  tree,"  "  sword,"  when  under- 
stood according  to  the  letter,  convey  natural  ideas,  whereas  such  is  the  nature  of 
angels  and  spirits  that  they  necessarily  receive  from  these  very  terms  spiritual 
ideas,  and  what  these  are  he  professes  to  state  from  the  wisdom  imparted  to  him 
when  elevated  to  the  sphere  of  angelic  intelligence.  He  informs  us,  moreover, 
that  the  paramount  principle  of  correspondence  or  analogy  affords  us  a  valid 
reason  why  such  and  such  natural  terms  convey  such  and  such  spiritual  ideas, 
and  no  others. 

The  opponents  of  Swedenborg  can  never,  with  the  least  semblance  of  fairness, 
evade  the  obligation  of  studying,  weighing,  and  pronouncing  upon  his  doctrine 
of  correspondence.  It  is  the  very  heart,  and  soul,  and  centre  of  the  system. 
Until  this  doctrine  is  looked  full  in  the  face,  the  true  genius  of  the  system  is  not 
even  approached  by  the  assailant.  One  might  as  well  essay  the  refutation  of 
Newton's  theory  of  the  universe  without  alluding  to  the  law  of- gravitation.  Yet 
where  has  this  been  done  by  a  single  writer  who  has  entered  the  lists  against 
him I  look  in  vain  through  the  ranks  for  an  isolated  instance  where  it  seems 
to  have  been  even  understood.  The  warfare  is  waged  on  entirely  other  grounds. 
Judge  then  how  little  his  defenders  would  be  apt  to  be  affected  by  the  reasonings 
of  his  adversaries.  How  can  they  feel  their  force  when  they  are  conscious  that 
their  main  position  is  not  only  not  reached,  but  not  perceived — it  does  not  even 
come  into  sight.  And  yet  this  is  not  to  be  charged  to  the  intrinsic  obscurity  of 
the  principle  in  itself  considered.  It  is  no  unintelligble  proposition,  that  every- " 
thing  natural  exists  and  subsists  from  a  spiritual  origin — that  the  human  body, , 
for  instance,  is  not  created  immediately,  bat  is  eltiboratedYrom  the  soul  or  spirit 
with  which  it  corresponds  in  structure,  form,  and  expression — that,  in  like  man^ 
ner,  the  whole  material  universe  is  the  product  of  the  spiritual  universe,  and^ 
not  of  the  immediate  and  direct  fiat  of  Omnipotence — that  every  single  object  in 
nature  is  thus  the  effect  of  a  spiritual  cause  with  which  it  corresponds,  especially  aa 
to  use,  which  is,  in  the  spiritual  world,  really  prior  to  the  material  embodiment 
in  the  natural  world* — and  that  the  natural  language  appropriate  to  the  expres-' 


*  "  The  reason  why  all  and  single  things  in  the  heavens  or  sky,  and  on  the  earth,  are 
representative,  is,  because  they  existed,  and  do  continually  exist,  that  is,  subsist,  from 
an  influx  of  the  Lord  through  heaven.  The  case  in  this  respect  is  like  that  of  the  hu- 
man body,  which  exists  and  subsists  by  its  soul  ;  wherefore  all  and  single  things  in  the 
body  are  representative  of  its  soul :  the  soul  is  in  the  use  and  end,  but  the  body  is  in  the 
execution  of  such  use  and  end.  In  like  manner,  all  effects  whatever  are  representative 
of  the  uses  which  are  their  causes;  and  the  uses  are  representative  of  the  ends  which 


52 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


sion  of  natural  objects  suggests  to  the  spiritual  mind  the  spiritual  ideas  with 
which  such  objects  correspond.  As  the  human  hand,  for  example,  is  an  elaboration 
oi  i\ie  executive  faculty  or  power  of  the  soul,  and  thus  corresponds  with  it,  as  an 
effect  corresponds  with  its  cause,  so  the  term  hand  legitimately  conveys  the  idea 
of  power,  not  by  any  arbitrary  or  merely  metaphorical  usage,  but  in  virtue  of  a 
fixed,  definable,  and  invariable  law.  And  so  of  a  thousand  other  things.  Accord- 
ing to  Swedenborg's  profound  philosophy,  the  spiritual  world  is  the  world  of 
causes,  and  just  in  proportion  as  the  mind  is  elevated  above  the  sphere  of  the 
corporeal  and  the  sensual,  it  comes  into  the  sphere  of  causes  and  understands  the 
language  of  cames,  which  is  the  language  of  correspondences.  The  great  question  to 
be  determined  in  the  outset  is  whether  the  principle  is  a  sound  one.  If  I  am 
satisfied  on  this  head,  I  have  ample  grounds,  I  conceive,  for  resting  in  full  as- 
surance as  to  the  correctness  of  the  specific  applications  which  he  makes  of  it. 
For  why  should  he  be  empowered  to  lay  open  the  law,  unless  he  was  qualified, 
at  the  same  time,  to  show  how  it  bears,  in  its  details,  upon  the  exposition  of 
particular  passages 

Now  of  a  multitude  of  such  explanations  as  you  have  cited,  you  remark,  that 
"  reason  and  common  sense  can  see  nothing  in  them  but  groundless  and  ex- 
travagant fancies.    Reason  searches  for  the  grounds  of  any  opinion ;  it  is  very 
much  inclined  to  inquire  for  the  why  and  the  whei-efore.    Why  does  the  river 
Pison  signify  the  intelligence  of  faith  and  love,  &c. .'"    Permit  me  to  say,  in  reply, 
that  the  real  point  at  issue  is  not,  in  the  first  instance,  whether  Swedenborg  af 
fords  you  at  once  a  clear  intellectual  perception  of  the  tnuh  of  the  meanings 
which  he  assigns  to  particular  terms,  but  whether  he  affords  you  sufficient  rea- 
son for  believing  in  the  existence  of  the  law  which  he  affirms,  and  for  confiding 
in  him  as  duly  qualified  to  apply  it.    The  fundamentals  of  any  system  take 
j^recedence  of  its  details,  and  the  great  question  here  is  in  regard  to  the  funda- 
bmental  law  of  the  spiritual  sense.    It  certainly  goes  not  a  little  in  support  ot 
Swedenborg's  position  that  the  general  principle  is  practically  recognized  in  the 
spiritual  sense  given,  as  it  were,  spontaneously  to  such  terms  as  "Zion,"  "Ca- 
naan,"" Jerusalem,"  "  Babylon,"  &c.  in  the  employment  of  which  the  mind  does 
not  dwell  upon  the  topographical  import  of  the  words,  but  passes  by  a  natural 
transition  to  an  abstract  or  spiritual  sense.     In  order  then  to  grasp  the  ra- 
'  tionale  of  Swedenborg's  internal  sense,  you  have  but  to  conceive  the  process  by 
which  your  own  mind  passes  from  the  literal  to  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  word 
"  Zion,"  for  instance,  when  in  prayer  you  implore  the  Most  High  that  he  would 
'  ''b'-ess  his  Zion."    Literally  understood  "  Zion"  is  the  name  of  a  part  of  the  an- 
cient city  of  Jerusalem,  but  you  certainly  do  not  use  it  in  prayer  in  such  a  sense. 
'So  aijo  with  such  terms  as  "  temple,"  "  altar,"  "  laver,"  &c.,  it  is  seldom  that  they 
are  used  under  the  gospel  economy  e.\cept  as  a  kind  of  external  covering  for 
certain  spiritual  ideas  familiar  to  all  Christians.   These  instances  are  sufficient 


are  their  first  principles.  They  who  are  in  divine  ideas  never  subsist  in  tlie  objects  of 
external  sight,  but  continually,  from  them  and  in  them,  behold  things  internal ;  and  in- 
ternal things  are,  most  essentially,  those  of  the  Lord's  kingdom  ;  consequently,  these 
are  in  the  veriest  end  of  all.  The  case  is  similar  in  regard  to  the  Word  of  the  Lord  : 
they  who  are  in  divine  ideas  never  regard  the  Word  of  the  Lord  from  the  letter,  but  con- 
sider the  letter,  and  the  literal  sense,  as  representative  and  significative  of  the  celestial 
and  spiritual  things  of  the  church  and  of  the  Lord's  kingdom.  With  them  the  literal 
sense  ts  only  an  instrumental  means  of  thinking  concerning  those  things." — A.  C.  1S07. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  53 

to  illustrate  the  general  principle,  psychologically  considered,  and  to  show  the 
possibility  of  what  Swedeuborg  affirms  to  be  the  truth — that  to  the  perception  of 
angels  the  whole  Word  is  so  constructed,  as  that  an  interior  spiritual  purport  is 
couched  under  the  natural  forms  of  expression  of  which  human  language  is 
composed.*  At  the  same  time,  he  remarks  that  this  interior  sense  is  not  always 
equally  remote  from  the  literal.  In  some  cases  it  is  coincident  with  it,  in  others 
it  recedes  but  slightly  from  it,  and  it  may  in  this  respect  be  compared  to  some 
of  the  rock  strata  of  the  earth,  which  for  the  most  part  are  deeply  concealed  in 
the  interior,  but  occasionally,  as  geologists  term  it,  crop  out  on  the  surface. t 

But  this  whole  subject  of  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word  forms  such  an  important 
feature  in  Swedenborg"s  system,  and  he  is  himself  so  incomparably  the  ablest 
expositor  of  his  own  doctrines,  that  I  shall  cite  rather  freely  from  his  pages  in 
order  to  present  the  matter  in  its  true  light.  Nothing  can  be  more  evident  from 
the  paragraphs  which  follow  than  that  the  great  question  inv^olved  is  a  question 
of  psychological  fact,  and  that  not  hermeneutics*^  merely,  but  metaphysics  also,  is 
concerned  in  the  refutation  of  the  doctrine.  You  will  doubtless  admit  that 
there  is  a  philosophy  of  some  kind  in  the  usage,  to  which  I  have  adverted,  in  re- 
gard to  certain  terms  familiar  in  all  Christian  discourse.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether-the  same  philosophy  will  not  sustain  Swedenborg"s  doctrine  on  this 
head. 

The  first  extract  I  shall  give  is  from  the  "  Spiritual  Diary,"  where,  in  a  section 
headed,  "  That  Heaven  does  not  see  names  and  words,  but  things,"  he  remarks, 

"  From  those  things  which  have  been  before  said  concerning  spirits,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  corporeal  things  must  first  be  put  off,  and,  indeed,  with  various  pains, 
and  thus  given  to  death.  Afterwards  natural  things  adhering  to  spiritual  things, 
for  such  a  nature  cannot  enter  heaven.  At  length  there  remains  in  the  spirit  or 
mind,  what  is  spiritual  and  celestial.  As,  therefore,  corporeal  and  natural 
things,  which  in  themselves  are  dead,  must  be  put  off  before  the  soul  can  enter 
heaven,  it  is  most  manifestly  evident  that  heaven  can  never  hear  nor  understand 
those  things  which  are  in  words,  and  which  are  corporeal  and  natural,  but  those 
things  which  are  spiritual,  celestial,  and  divine ;  thus  which  are  remote,  more 
remote,  and  most  remote  from  the  literal  sense.  As  when  a  man  thinks  more 
sublimely  than  usual,  he  cares  nothing  about  the  words,  butonly  about  the  sense 
arising  from  the  words,  and  from  the  proximate  sense  he  concludes  respecting 
a  superior  or  more  sublime  sense.  Hence  it  is  absurd  to  think  that  heaven  hears 
and  understands  the  Word  according  to  the  letter,  or  that  it  understands  the 
names  of  men,  women,  cities,  and  the  like,  since  heaven  is  in  the  sense  of  things 
which  lie  concealed  within  the  Word.  The  sense  of  the  letter  does  not  proceed 
beyond  the  expression,  or  sound  of  the  ear,  consequently  not  beyond  the  body." 
— Spir.  Diary,  612. 


*  "Whatever  is  written  in  the  Word,  in  itself  and  in  its  essence  is  spiritual.  That 
the  Word  is  spiritual  is  known,  but  its  spiritual  does  not  appear  in  the  letter,  for  in  the 
letter  it  is  worldly,  especially  in  the  historical  parts ;  but  when  it  is  read  by  man,  the 
worldly  which  is  therein,  becomes  spiritual  in  the  spiritual  world,  that  is,  with  the  an- 
gels; for  they  cannot  think  otherwise  than  spiritually  of  each  thing  contained  in  it. 
To  think  spiritually  is  to  think  of  those  things  which  are  of  the  Lord's  Kingdom,  thus 
of  those  things  which  are  of  the  Church."— 2.  C.  44S0. 

t  "  We  have  compared  the  letter  of  the  Word  of  God  to  the  skin  that  covers  the 
body,  and  its  hidden  contents  to  the  interior  organs  and  members  ;  but  to  illustrate  the 
present  subject,  the  Holy  Word  may  be  compared  to  a  beautiful  female,  clothed  in  be- 
coming drapery,  but  whose  face  and  hands  remain  uncovered  :  thus,  while  the  greater 
part  of  the  letter  of  the  Scriptures  consists  of  truths  veiled  over  by  natural  images,  which 
cannot  be  deciphered  without  a  key,  the  things  most  indispensable  to  be  known  are 
openly  displayed." — JVoble's  Plen.  Inspir.  p.  115. 


§4, 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


Here  we  have  the  assertion  of  a  principle  pertaining  to  our  interior  constitution 
which  at  once  connects  itself  with  the  law  of  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word. 
It  is  an  affirmation  upon  which  our  reason  and  consciousness  must  decide. 
Have  we  adequate  grounds,  from  what  we  know  of  ourselves  and  from  rational 
deductipns'thence,  to  conclude  that  such  is,  in  fact,  the  structure  and  working 
of  the  human  mind  If  not,  the  question,  I  think,  will  be  very  apt  to  come  up — 
as  I  am  sure  it  ought — how  such  a  theory  should  ever  have  occurred  to  its  pro- 
pounder  How  came  Swedenborg  to  think  of  it To  a  considerate  mind  there 
is  a  problem  here  which  demands  solution,  for  it  is  a  principle  as  profound  as 
novel,  and  carrj'ing  with  it  an  air  of  the  highest  probability.  And  let  me  here 
remark,  that  in  nothuag  am  I  more  surprised  than  in  witnessing  the  apparently 
slight  impression  made  upon  the  mass  of  even  thinking  men  by  the  intrinsic 
character  of  Swedenborg's  psychologJ^  How  is  it  possible  that  they  should  not 
recognize  its  claims  to  the  deepest  consideration Do  they  feel  assured  of  rest- 
ing in  a  philosophy  more  rational,  more  plausible,  mere  certam Why  do  they 
not  feel  the  pressure  of  the  demand  to  account  for  the  stupendous  inconsistency 
of  such  philosophy  as  his  coexisting  with,  and  emanating  from,  a  deranged  in- 
tellect ?  Has  anything  ever  yet  presented  itself  to  the  world  more  Avorthy  of  en- 
lightened inquiry  ?  Yet  alas,  with  what  amazing  facility  and  apathy  is  this 
question  pretermitted  It  is  not  usually  very  difficult  to  recognize  such  ideas  as 
are  evidently  in  advance  of  the  general  state  of  the  human  mind  at  any  particular 
period  of  its  progress.  We  have  a  certain  instinctiv^aerception  of  whatever 
transcends,  in  any  marked  degree,  the  ordinary  standard  of  thought,  and  when 
results  are  announced  which  plainly  outreach  this  measiu-e,  we  behold  an  effect 
for  which  we  naturally  demand  the  cause.  It  presents  a  problem  which  the  ex- 
istuig  data  do  not  enable  us  to  solve.  This  remark  applies,  I  think,  with  pecu- 
liar force  to  the  psychological  system  of  Swedenborg.  It  is  impossible  for  one 
to  have  mastered  it  in  its  details  without  his  being  struck  with  its  palpable  diver- 
sity from  all  previous  systems,  and  we  look  m  vain  to  all  the  varied  influences 
bearing  upon  the  man,  from  his  earliest  years,  to  afford  a  clew  to  the  phenome- 
non. If  we  content  ourselves  with  the  supposition  of  a  native  intellect  of  high 
^  order — combining  originality,  vigor,  penetration,  and  wideness  of  grasp  in  rare 
union — still  the  products  of  this  genius  so  immeasurably  surpass  all  that  could 
have  been  anticipated  from  merely  natural  endowments,  that  the  idea  of  the 
supernatural  in  their  origination  does  scarcely  any  more  violence  to  our  impres- 
sions. The  urgency  of  the  demand,  however,  for  some  rational  mode  of  solving 
the  multitudinous  problems  that  distinguish  the  case  of  Swedenborg  is,  I  am 
satisfied,  beginning  to  be  felt  both  deeply  and  widely,  and  no  amount  of  angry 
opposition  or  polemical  protest  can  much  longer  stave  off  the  issue  which  the 
philosophical  mind  of  the  age  must  make  with  these  amazing  developments. 

But  I  proceed  with  my  citations  illustrative  of  the  principle  of  the  spiritual 
sense.  In  the  following  passage  he  still  farther  shows  how  it  is  that  proper  names 
lose  their  distinctive  character  to  a  spiritual  perception. 

"The  names  of  men,  of  kingdoms,  and  of  cities,  which  occur  in  the  Word,  in 
like  manner  as  the  expressions  of  human  speech,  perish  at  the  first  beginning  of 
the  ascent,  for  they  are  earthly,  corporeal,  and  material,  which  are  successively 
put  off  by  souls  that  come  into  the  other  life,  and  altogether  by  those  that  come 
into  heaven.  The  angels  do  not  retain  the  least  idea  of  any  person  mentioned 
in  the  Word,  nor,  consequently,  of  his  name.    What  Abram  is,  what  Isaac,  and 


/ 


V 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


55 


Jacob,  they  no  longer  know,  forming  to  thcm.selves  an  idea  from  those  things 
which,  in  the  Word,  are  represented  and  signified  by  them.    Names  and  vocal 
expressions  are  like  earthly  coverings,  or  scales,  which  fall  off  when  they  enter 
into  heaven.    Hence  it  may  appear,  that  by  names,  in  the  Word,  are  signified 
nothing  else  than  things;  concerning  which  I  have  frequently  disconr.sed  with 
the  angels,  and  have  been  fnlly  instructed  by  them  as  to  the  truth.    Tike  si)eech 
of  spirits  among  themselves  is  not  a  speech  of  words,  but  of  ideas,  such  as  ar^x 
those  of  human  thought  independent  of  words  :  wherefore  it  is  the  universal  oP 
all  languages  :  but  when  they  speak  witli  man,  their  speech  falls  into  the  words^^^ 
of  man's  language." — A.  C.  i876. 

"  Names,  countries,  nations,  and  the  like,  are  not  at  all  known  to  those  who 
are  in  heaven ;  they  have  no  idea  of  such  things,  but  of  the  realities  signified 
thereby.  It  is  from  the  internal  sense  that  the  Word  of  the  Lord  lives,  this  sense 
being  like  the  soul,  of  which  the  external  sense  is  as  it  were  the  body;  and  the 
case  with  the  Word  is  as  with  man ;  when  his  body  dies,  then  his  soul  lives,  and 
when  the  soul  lives,  then  he  is  no  longer  acquainted  with  the  things  that  relate 
to  the  body  :  thus  when  he  comes  amongst  the  angels,  he  knows  not  what  the 
Word  is  in  its  literal  sense,  but  only  what  it  is  in  its  soul.  Such  was  the  man  of 
the  Most  Ancient  Church;  were  he  living  at  this  day  on  earth,  and  were  he  to  , 
read  the  Word,  he  would  not  at  all  remain  in  the  sense  of  the  letter,  but  it  would 
be  as  if  he  did  not  see  it,  but  only  the  internal  sense  abstracted  from  the  letter,  • 
and  this  in  such  a  manner  as  if  the  letter  had  no  existence  ;  thus  he  would  dwell 
in  the  life  or  soul  of  the  Word.  The  case  is  the  same  with  every  part  of  the  . 
Word,  even  with  the  historicals,  which  are  altogether  such  as  they  are  related; 
but  yet  not  even  the  minutest  word  is  given,  which  does  not  in  the  internal  sense 
involve  arcana,  which  never  become  apparent  to  those  who  keep  their  attention 
fixed  on  the  historical  context." — A.  C.  1143. 

I  must  of  course  be  aware  that  the  intrinsic  truth  of  this  cannot  be  expected  to 
flash,  as  it  were,  upon  the  mind  of  every  reader  at  once  ;  but  I  still  believe  that 
when  deliberately  weighed,  it  will  commend  itself  as  in  the  highest  degree 
rational  and  probable,  for  in  the  process  above  adverted  to  by  which  such  words 
as  "  Zion,"  "  Canaan,"  "  Babylon,"  &c.,  lose  their  original  import  to  a  spiritual  con- 
ception, we  have  a  sample  of  the  operation  of  precisely  the  same  law.  And  so 
also  the  following,  vt^hich  rests  upon  essentially  the  same  principle.  The  pas- 
sage explained  is  Gen.  six.  2,  "  In  the  morning  ye  shall  rise  up  early  and  go  on 
your  way." 

"  From  this,  as  from  other  passages,  it  is  evident  how  remote  the  internal  sense 
is  from  the  sense  of  the  letter,  and  hence  how  unseen,  especially  in  the  histori- 
cal parts  of  the  Word ;  and  that  it  is  not  made  manifest,  unless  each  particular 
expression  be  explained  according  to  its  constant  signification  in  the  Word. 
Wherefore  when  the  ideas  are  kept  confined  in  the  sense  of  the  letter,  the  internal 
sense  appears  no  otherwise  than  as  something  obscure  and  dark ;  but  on  the 
other  hand,  when  the  ideas  are  kept  in  the  internal  sense,  the  sense  of  the  letter 
appears  in  like  manner  obscure,  yea,  to  the  angels  as  nothing;  for  the  angels 
are  no  longer  in  worldly  and  corporeal  ideas,  such  as  appertain  unto  man,  but 
in  spiritual  and  celestial  ideas,  into  which  the  expressions  of  the  sense  of  the 
letter  are  wonderfully  changed,  whilst  that  sense  ascend.s  from  man,  who  reads 
the  Word,  to  the  sphere  in  which  the  angels  are,  that  is,  to  heaven,  and  this  from 
the  correspondence  of  things  spiritual  with  things  worldly,  and  of  things  celestial 
with  things  corporeal;  which  correspondence  is  most  regular  and  constant,  but 
never  as  yet  fully  opened  as  to  its  quality,  only  now  in  the  exphcation  of  expres- 
sions, of  names,  and  numbers,  according  to  their  internal  sense  in  the  Word.  In 
order  to  show  the  nature  of  that  correspondence,  or  what  is  the  same  thing,  how 
worldly  and  corporeal  ideas  pass  into  corresponding  spiritual  and  celestial  ideas, 
when  they  are  elevated  into  heaven,  the  expressions  mornmg  and  way  may  serve 
as  examples;  when  morning  is  read,  as  in  the  verse  before  us,  to  rise  in  the 
morning,  the  angels  do  not  conceive  an  idea  of  any  morning  of  a  day,  but  an 


56 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


idea  of  morning  in  a  spiritual  sense,  thus  similar  to  what  was  written  in  Samnel : 
*  The  rock  of  Israel,  He  is  as  the  light  of  the  morning,  when  the  snn  ariseth,  a 
morning  without  a  cloud,'  2  Sam.  xxiii.  4  :  and  in  Daniel :  '  The  Holy  One  said 
unto  me,  even  until  evening,  when  the  morning  cometh,  two  thousand  three 
hundred,' viii.  14,26;  thus  instead  of  morning  they  perceive  the  Lord,  or  his 
kingdom,  or  the  celestial  things  of  love  and  charity,  and  this  with  a  variety  ac- 
cording to  the  series  of  things  in  the  Word  which  is  read.  In  like  manner  when 
the  term  way  occurs,  as  here,  to  go  on  your  way,  the  angels  cannot  have  any 
idea  of  a  way,  but  a  spiritual  or  celestial  one,  like  as  in  John  ;  'I  am  the  way 
and  the  truth,'  xiv.  6 :  and  in  David :  '  0  Jehovah,  make  known  to  me  thy  ways, 
lead  my  way  ui  truth,'  Psalm  xxv.  3,  4 :  and  in  Isaiah ;  '  Thou  hast  caused  him 
to  know  the  way  of  intelligences,'  xl.  14.  Thus  instead  of  way  they  perceive 
truth,  and  this,  both  in  the  historical  and  prophetical  parts  of  the  Word  :  lor  the 
angels  have  no  longer  any  concern  about  the  historicals,  inasmuch  as  such  re- 
lations are  not  at  all  adequate  to  their  ideas,  wherefore  instead  thereof  they  per- 
ceive such  things  as  are  of  the  Lord,  and  his  kingdom,  which  also  are  arranged 
in  a  beautiful  order,  and  connected  series,  in  the  internal  sense  ;  that  the  Word 
might  on  this  account  also  be  for  the  angels,  all  the  historical  relations  therein 
are  representative,  and  every  expression  significative  of  such  things  as  respect 
the  Lord  and  his  kingdom,  which  circumstance  is  pecuhar  to  the  Word  above 
any  other  writing." — A.  C.  2333. 

Here  we  have  the  asserted  sense  in  which  the  angels  understand  the  terms 
"morning"  and  "way."  It  arises  from  the  very  nature  of  angelic  ideas,  which 
always  affix  the  same  import  to  the  same  terms.  Consequently  so  far  as  we 
can  rest  in  the  soundness  of  these  interpretations,  we  have  at  least  the  satis- 
faction of  knowing  that  we  read  the  Word  in  concert  with  the  celestial  intelli- 
gences, and  how  far  this  detracts  from  the  interest  or  disparages  the  literal  verity 
of  the  inspired  record,  every  reflecting  mind  can  judge  for  itself.  The  only  ob- 
jection which  I  can  conceive  as  being  urged  against  it  is,  that  we  have  no  suffi- 
cient evidence  that  such  are  the  ideas  of  the  angels,  and  this  is  but  another 
form  of  denying  the  fact  of  Swedenborg's  illuminated  insight  into  the  things  of 
the  spirit-world.  If  this,  however,  is  denied  it  must  be  upon  other  grounds  than 
his  developments  of  the  philosophy  of  the  spiritual  sense,  for  there  is  nothing  Id 
this  that  intrinsically  goes  to  militate  with  his  claim,  as  there  is  nothing  in  it  in- 
trinsically unreasonable  or  absurd — nothing  which  we  might  not  easily  admit, 
provided  we  saw  reason  to  believe  in  the  reality  of  the  vision  upon  which  he 
affirms  its  existence.  The  proof  of  this  is  not  the  present  object  of  discussion. 
We  shall  be  better  prepared  for  it  in  the  sequel. 

A  very  important  principle  in  the  spiritual  interpretation  of  the  Word  grows 
out  of  the  fact  that  the  spiritual  world  according  to  Svvedenborg  is  replete  with 
represmitative  objects,  which  are  at  the  same  time  signijicant,  and  as  these  objects  im- 
mediately suggest  to  the  beholding  spirits  the  thingx  emblematically  set  forth  by 
them,  or,  in  the  Kantian  phrase,  as  the  phenomena  intuitively  call  to  mind  the 
noumena,  so  the  names  which  designate  such  objects  in  the  inspired  Word  sum- 
mon up  to  the  spiritual  mind  the  spiritual  realities  for  which  they  stand.  This 
is  strikingly  illustrated,  both  as  to  principle  and  application,  in  what  follows. 

"  When  man's  interior  sight  is  opened,  which  is  the  sight  of  his  spirit,  then 
there  appear  the  things  of  another  life,  which  cannot  possibly  be  made  visible  to 
the  sight  of  the  body.  The  visions  of  the  prophets  were  nothing  else.  There 
are  in  heaven,  as  was  said  above,  continual  representatives  of  the  Lord  and  of 
his  kingdom;  and  there  are  also  significatives  ;  insomuch  that  nothing  at  all  ex- 
ists before  the  sight  of  the  angels,  which  is  not  representative  and  significative. 
Hence  are  the  representatives  and  significatives  in  the  Word ;  for  the  Word  is 
through  heaven  from  the  Lord. — A.  C.  1619. 


I 
I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


57 


"  It  may  appear  surprising  to  ov«(y''one,  that  the  animals  mentioned  in  the 
Word,  and  also  those  offered  in  sacrifices,  should  signify  goods  and  truths,  or 
what  is  the  same,  things  celestial  and  spiritual,  hut  ic  is  permitted  to  state  in  a 
few  words  whence  this  is.  hi  the  world  of  spirits  various  representatives  are  ex- 
hibited, and  frequently  there  appear  before  the  eyes  of  spirits  animals,  as  horses 
with  various  trappings,  oxen,  cows,  lambs,  and  divers  other  kinds,  sometimes 
such  as  were  never  seen  on  the  earth,  but  are  only  representatives;  such  things 
were  also  seen  by  the  Prophets,  as  they  are  recorded  in  the  Word,  which  like- 
wise were  from  thence.  The  animals  which  appear  there,  are  representative  of  the 
affections  of  good  and  truth,  and  also  of  evil  and  the  false  :  good  spirits  know 
perfectly  well  what  they  signify,  and  also  collect  thence  wliat  is  the  subject  of 
discourse  amongst  the  angels,  for  the  discourse  of  the  angels,  when  it  flows  down 
into  the  world  of  spirits,  is  sometimes  thus  exhibited  in  representatives.  As,  for 
example,  when  horses  appear,  the  good  spirits  know  that  the  discourse  of  the 
angels  is  about  things  intellectual ;  when  oxen  and  cows  appear,  that  it  is  about 
natural  goods ;  when  sheep  appear,  that  it  is  about  rational  goods  and  about 
probity  ;  when  lambs,  that  it  is  about  goods  still  more  interior,  and  about  inno- 
cence ;  and  so  in  other  cases,  hiasmuch  as  the  men  of  the  most  ancient  Church, 
communicated  with  spirits  and  angels,  and  also  had  visions  and  dreams  con- 
tinually like  those  of  the  Prophets,  hence,  as  soon  as  they  saw  any  beast, 
the  idea  occurred  to  them  what  it  signified.  From  tliem  first  arose  representa- 
tives and  significatives,  which  remained  long  after  their  times,  and  at  length  were 
held  in  such  veneration  by  reason  of  their  antiquity,  that  men  wrote  by  mere 
represei.tatives,  and  the  books,  which  were  not  so  written,  were  accounted  of 
no  value,  and  if  written  within  the  Church,  of  no  sanctity :  hence,  and  from  other 
hidden  causes,  concerning  which,  by  the  Divine  Mercy  of  the  Lord,  we  shall 
speak  elsewhere,  the  books  of  the  Word  also  were  so  written." — A.  C.  2179. 

"  The  reason  why  a  mountain  signifies  the  good  of  love,  is,  because  in  heav-i 
en  they  dwell  upon  mountains  who  are  principled  in  the  good  of  love  to  the\  , 
Lord,  and  they  who  are  principled  in  charily  towards  their  neighbor  upon  hills, ( 
or  what  amounts  to  the  same,  they  who  are  of  the  Lord's  celestial  kingdom  dwell  /  ^' 
upon  mountains,  and  they  who  are  of  his  spiritual  kingdom,  upon  hills,  and  the^ 
celestial  kingdom  is  hereby  distinguished  from  the  spiritual  kingdom,  that  they 
who  belong  to  the  former  are  principled  in  love  to  the  Lord,  and  they  who  be- 
long to  the  latter  in  charity  towards  their  neighbor  ;  hence  it  is  that  by  a  moun- 
taui  is  signified  the  good  of  love  to  the  Lord.    A  further  reason  why  this  is  ab-'  ' 
stractedly  signified  by  a  mountain,  is,  because  all  things  which  are  in  the  inter-  '■ 
nal  sense  of  the  Word  are  spiritual,  and  spiritual  things  are  to  be  understood 
abstractedly  from  persons  and  places  ;  wherefore  also  the  angels,  inasmuch  as 
they  are  spiritual,  think  and  speak  abstractedly  from  such  things,  and  thereby 
they  are  in  intelligence  and  wisdom,  for  an  idea  of  persons  and  places  bounds 
the  thought,  inasmuch  as  it  determines  to  those  things,  and  thus  limits  it.  Such 
idea  of  the  thought  is  properly  natural,  whereas  an  idea  abstracted  from  persons 
and  places  extends  itself  into  heaven  in  every  direction,  and  is  no  otherwise 
bounded  than  as  the  sight  of  the  eye  whilst  it  views  the  heavens  without  being 
obstructed  by  intervening  objects,  and  such  an  idea  is  properly  spiritual;  hence 
it  is  that  a  mountain,  in  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word,  signifies  the  good  of 
love.    The  case  is  similar  with  respect  to  the  signification  of  the  earth,  as  denot- 
ing the  church  ;  for  an  idea  abstracted  from  places,  and  from  nations  and  peo- 
ple on  the  earth,  is  that  of  the  church  on  earth  or  with  those  who  live  on  it;  and 
this  therefore  is  what  is  signified  by  earth  in  the  Word.    The  case  is  similar  with 
other  things,  which  are  mentioned  in  the  natural  sense  of  the  Word,  as  with  hills, 
rocks,  valleys,  rivers,  seas,  cities,  houses,  gardens,  forests,  and  so  on." — Apoc. 
Ex.  405. 

Here  again  is  a  fact  asserted  as  to  the  objects  seen  in  the  spiritual  world.  The 
only  rational  mode  of  objecting  to  the  principle  affirmed  is  to  deny  the  fact  as- 
serted, and  this  brings  us  on  to  an  entirely  new  ground  in  the  conduct  of  the  de- 
bate, to  which  it  is  not  expedient  now  to  pass.  If  you  are  still  at  a  loss  to  per- 
ceive the  precise  link  of  connection  which  binds  these  visual  phenomena  of  the 


68  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

'other  life  to  the  verbal  frame-work  of  the  Word,  let  me  here  remark  that,  m  the 
profound  philosophy  of  Swedenborg,  the  actual  creation  of  these  objects  in 
the  material  world  proceeds  from  the  fixing  or  ultimating  these  very  represent- 
ative essences— for  they  are  essential  or  substantial — in  material  forms,  so  that 
under  God,  the  first  great  cause,  the  one  becomes  the  proximate  cause  of  the 
other,  and  thus  the  correspondence  between  them  develops  itself.  The  philosophy 
of  all  this  is  very  clearly  unfolded  in  the  ensuing  paragraph. 

"  That  nothing  exists  in  nature  but  from  a  spiritual  principle  is,  because  there 
cannot  anything  be  given,  unless  it  has  a  soul ;  all  that  is  called  soul  which  is  es- 
sence, for  what  has  not  in  itself  an  essence,  this  does  not  exist,  for  it  is  a  nonen- 
tity, because  there  is  no  esse  from  which  it  is ;  thus  it  is  with  nature ;  its  essence 
from  which  it  exists  is  the  spiritual  principle,  because  this  has  in  itself  the 
divine  me,  and  also  the  divine  power  of  acting,  creating,  and  forming,  as  will  be 
seen  from  what  follows  :  this  essence  may  also  be  called  soul :  because  all  that 
is  spiritual  lives,  and  what  is  alive,  when  it  acts  into  what  is  not  alive,  as  into 
what  is  natural,  causes  it  either  to  have  as  it  were  life,  or  to  derive  somewhat 
of  the  appearance  thereof  from  the  living  principle :  the  latter  [is  the  case]  in 
vegetables,  the  former  in  animals.  That  nothing  in  nature  exists  but  from  what 
is  spiritual,  is  because  no  effect  is  given  without  a  cause,  whatever  exists  in  ef- 
fect is  from  a  cause ;  what  is  not  from  a  cause,  is  separated ;  thus  it  is  with  na- 
ture ;  the  singular  and  most  singular  things  thereof  are  an  effect  from  a  cause 
which  is  prior  to  it,  and  which  is  interior  to  it,  and  which  is  superior  to  it,  and 
also  is  immediately  from  God ;  for  a  spiritual  world  is  given,  that  world  is  prior, 
interior,  and  superior  to  the  natural  world,  wherefore  everything  of  the  spiritual 
world  is  a  cause  and  everything  of  the  natural  world  is  an  effect.  Indeed  one 
thing  exists  from  another  progressively  even  in  the  natural  world,  but  this  by 
causes  from  the  spiritual  world,  for  where  the  cause  of  the  effect  is,  there  also  is 
the  cause  of  the  effect  efficient ;  for  every  effect  becomes  an  efficient  cause  in 
order  even  to  the  ultimate,  where  the  effective  power  subsists  ;  but  this  is  effect- 
ed continually  from  a  spiritual  principle,  in  which  alone  that  force  is;  and  so  it 
is,  that  nothing  m  nature  exists  e.vcept  from  something  spiritual  and  by  it." — Ath. 
Creed.  94. 


If  this  is  well  founded  we  can  no  longer  recognize  creation  as  the  immediate 
product  of  the  divine  Jiat,  but  as  always  proceeding  through  the  spiritual  world, 
which  itself  proceeds  by  emanation  from  the  Lord  himself.  All  living  organisms, 
whether  animal  or  vegetable,  are  the  elaborations  of  spiritual  essences  which  be- 
come fixed  and  sensibly  mirrored  in  material  embodiments,  and  this  fact  dis- 
closes the  true  ground  of  correspondences.  The  idea  is  strikingly  exhibited  in  an 
incident  mentioned  as  a  part  of  Swedenborg's  experience  in  the  world  of  spirits. 
AJdLt  »'  I  heard  two  presidents  of  the  English  Royal  Society,  Sir  Hans  Sloane  and 
,  (jMartin  Folkes,  conversuig  together  in  the  spiritual  world  concerning  the  exist- 

pence  of  seeds  and  eggs,  and  concerning  productions  from  them  on  earth :  the 
led  f/yo  vformer  ascribed  them  to  nature,  insisting  that  nature  was,  from  creation,  endued 
\^  JL    /with  powers  of  producing  such  things  by  means  of  the  sun's  heat ;  the  other  said 
f  t^v     (that  that  power  is  continually  from  God  the  Creator  in  nature.    In  order  to  de- 
rftt      »*-!iermine  the  dispute,  a  beautiful  bird  was  exhibited  to  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  and  he 
was  told  to  examine  whether  in  any  the  least  thing  it  differed  from  a  similar 
bird  on  earth  :  he  held  it  in  his  hand,  examined  it,  and  said  that  there  was  no 
difference  ;  he  knew  that  it  was  no  other  than  an  afijifiiigiCof  a  certain  angel  re- 
presented without  him  as  a  bird,  and  that  it  would  vanish  or  cease  with  its  af- 
fection ;  which  also  came  to  pass.    Sir  Hans  Sloane  was  convinced  by  this  ex- 
periment, that  nature  docs  not  contribute  at  all  to  the  production  of  vegetables 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


59 


and  animals,  but  only  that  which  flows  from  the  spiritual  world  into  the  natural ; 
he  also  said,  that  if  that  bird  were  to  be  filled  in  its  least  parts  with  correspond- 
ing matter  from  the  earth,  and  so  fixed,  it  would  be  a  durable  bird,  as  birds  are 
on  earth  ;  and  that  it  is  the  same  with  things  that  are  from  hell.  He  added  fur- 
tlier,  that  if  he  had  known  what  he  now  knew  of  the  spiritual  world,  he  would 
noc  have  ascribed  any  more  to  nature,  than  that  it  served  the  spiritual  principle 
which  is  from  God,  in  fbcmg  the  things  that  continually  flow  into  nature." — {D. 
L.  ^  W.  344.) 

The  essence  of  the  bird  therefore  is  a  spiritual  entity  wbicli  becomes  a  living  f^foO. 
bird  by  being  fixed  in,  or  clothed  with,  a  material  body,  and  this  entity  is  from  \ 
tlie  infinitude  of  the  divine  affections  and  thoughts.    In  the  first  bird  created  ; 
there  is  primarily  existent  a  psychical  form,  or  spiritual  body,  which  by  the  in- 
flowing of  the  divine  Life  and  by  the  law  which  connects  matter  with  spirit, 
works  out  a  material  body  corresponding  with  what  we  may  term  the  psychical  ^ 

or  sow/-body_  and  adapted  to  its  uses  and  ends  in  the  natural  world.    But  with  .__ 

all  subseg^ueni  birds  the  case  is  different ;  here  the  creation  is  by  procreation,  in.;  ' 
which  the  parent  transmits  the  psychical  principle,  the  interior  form,  and  this  isi; 
endowed  with  the  power  of  gathering  around  it  the  earthly  elements  necessary 
to  the  construction  of  the  body  of  the  bird,  the  all  pervading  life  of  the  divine 
love  meantime  flowing  in  and  animating  it,  and  endowing  it  with  the  intelligence  \, 
or  instinct  appropriate  to  the  peculiar  character  of  its  reigning;  affection.  ThisJ*' 
psychical  principle,  however,  in  birds  and  beasts,  unlike  that  in  man,  is  not  im-:| . 
inortal,  but  is  dissipated  at  death.    The  creatures  of  this  kind  which  are  seen  in* 
the  spiritual  world  are  not  the  disembodied  souls  of  birds  or  beasts,  but  mere 
transient  representative  appearances  created  by  and  flowing  proximately  from  the 
internal  states,  as  to  affection  and  thought,  of  angels  and  spirits.    Yet  when  I  term 
them  appearances  I  do  not  mean  that  they  are  not  really  substantial.    The  spiritual 
world  is  far  more  a  world  of  substance — of  that  which  stands  under — than  the  ma- 
terial world.    These  visual  appearances  then,  though  intrinsically  substantial, 
are  what  is  prior,  not  what  is  posterior,  to  the  earthly  formations. 

I  am  well  aware  that  this  may  properly  be  termed  wadmg  in  deep  waters,  but  it 
is,  I  conceive,  merely  carrying  out  or  illustrating  the  scope  of  what  Swedenborg 
says,  in  the  extract  quoted  above,  respecting  the  rationale  of  creation,  and  my 
object  in  tlms  expanding  the  idea  is  to  exhibit  somewhat  clearly  the  principle 
of  correspondence  which  underlies  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  spiritual  sense.  A 
Iamb,  for  iilstance,  corresponds  to  innocence,  "  since  innocence  is  primary  in 
the  Lord's  kingdom,  and  is  the  celestial  itself  there,  and  since  sacrifices  and  burnt- 
offerings  represented  the  spiritual  and  celestial  things  of  the  Lord's  kingdom, 
therefore  the  very  essential  of  his  kingdom,  which  is  innocence,  was  represented 
by  lambs. ,  ,  ,  The  reason  why  a  woman  at  her  delivery,  when  the  days  of  cleans  - 
ing  were  accomplished,  was  to  offer  a  lamb  for  a  burnt- offering,  or  a  dove,  or  a 
turtle,  was  that  the  effect  of  conjugial  love  might  be  signified  (which  is  inno- 
cence), and  because  infants  signify  innocence." — {A.  C.  3994.)  Now  a  lamb  is 
a  living  embodiment  of  the  affection  of  innocence.  That  affection  is  the  proxi- 
mate cause  of  its  existence  and  its  organic  structure  and  configuration  correspond 
with  its  internal  essence.  Consequently  the  term  lamb  denotes,  in  its  spiritua' 
sense,  that  affection  wherever  it  occurs  in  the  Word.  This  is  irituitively  perceiv- 
ed by  the  angels,  inasmuch  as  whenever  a  lamb  appears  in  the  spiritual  world 


80 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


— as  is  usually  the  case  when  they  are  discoursing  of  innocence — they  are  led 
at  once  to  recognize  the  relation  between  the  symbol  and  the  affection.  It 
is  fundamentally  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  and  this  is  the  true  nature  of  cor- 
respondence. How  remote  the  principle  is,  then,  from  the  fanciful  and  the  arbi- 
trary, one  may  perceive  at  a  glance. 

I  now  propose  to  exhibit  some  other  phases  of  this  doctrine  of  the  esoterics 
sense  of  the  Scriptures.  Upon  no  point  is  Swedenborg  more  explicit  than  in 
reference  to  the  ulterior  import  of  the  Word  as  having  respect  to  the  Lord  him- 
self and  the  spiritual  and  celestial  things  of  his  kingdom.  It  is  in  this  import, 
in  fact,  that  its  true  and  essential  divinity  consists.  He  thus  speaks  on  this 
head. 

"  That  the  Word  of  the  Old  Testament  contains  the  arcana  of  heaven,  and 
that  all  and  everything  therein  regards  the  Lord,  his  heaven,  the  church,  faith, 
and  the  things  which  are  of  faith,  no  mortal  derives  from  the  letter;  for  from  the 
letter  or  literal  sense,  no  one  sees  anything  else  than  that  they  regard  in  general 
the  externals  of  the  Jewish  Church  ;  when  yet  there  are  internal  things  through- 
out, which  are  no  where  manifest  in  the  externals,  except  a  very  few  which  the 
,Lord  revealed  and  explained  to  the  apostles;  as  that  sacrifices  signify  the  Lord; 
that  the  land  of  Canaan  and  Jerusalem  signify  heaven;  whence  it  is  called  the 
Tieavenly  Canaan  and  Jerusalem;  in  like  manner  Paradise. 

,  j  "  But  that  thinsrs  all  and  each,  3'ea  the  most  particular,  even  to  the  smallest  jot, 
t^signify  and  involve  spiritual  and  celestial  things,  the  Christian  world  is  hitherto 
profoundly  ignorant ;  wherefore  also  it  little  regards  the  Old  Testament.  This 
truth,  however,  might  appear  plain  from  this  single  circumstance,  that  the  Word, 
being  of  the  Lord  and  from  the  Lord,  could  not  possibly  have  any  existence,  un- 
less interiorly  it  contained  such  things  as  are  of  heaven,  of  the  church,  and  of 
faith;  otherwise  it  could  not  be  called  the  Word  of  the  Lord,  nor  be  said  to  have 
any  life  in  it ;  for  whence  is  tlie  life,  but  from  those  things  which  are  of  life that 
is,  except  from  hence,  that  all  and  singular  things  have  relation  to  the  Lord,  who 
is  most  real  and  essential  life  Wherefore  whatsoever  does  not  interiorly  regard 
the  Lord,  does  not  live  ;  yea,  whatsoever  expression  in  the  Word  does  not  in- 
volve Him,  or  in  its  measure  relate  to  Him,  is  not  divine. 

"  Without  such  a  life,  the  Wonl,  as  to  the  letter,  is  dead  ;  for  it  is  with  the  Word 
as  with  man,  who,  as  is  known  in  the  Christian  world,  is  external  and  internal; 
the  external  man  separated  from  the  internal  is  the  body,  and  thus  dead ;  but 
the  internal  is  that  which  lives,  and  gives  to  the  external  to  live ;  the  internal 
man  is  the  soul :  thus  the  Word,  as  to  the  letter  alone,  is  like  a  body  without  a 
6ouI. 

•'  It  is  impossible  to  see  from  the  sense  of  the  letter  only,  when  the  mind  abides 
therein,  that  it  contains  such  things;  as  in  these  first  chapters  of  Genesis,  from 
the  sense  of  the  letter  nothing  else  is  known  than  that  it  is  treated  of  the  crea- 
tion of  the  world,  and  of  the  garden  of  Eden,  which  is  called  Paradise,  and  also 
of  Adam  as  the  first  created  man.  Who  supposes  anything  else  ?  But  that  they 
contain  arcana,  which  were  never  heretofore  revealed,  will  sufficiently  appear 
from  the  following  ]iages,  and  indeed  that  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  in  its  inter- 
nal sense,  treats  of  tlie  New  Creation  of  man,  or  of  his  Regeneration,  in  general, 
and  of  the  Most  Ancient  Church  in  particular ;  and  this  in  such  a  manner,  that 
there  is  not  a  single  syllable  which  does  not  represent,  signify,  and  involve  it. 

"Eut  that  .such  is  the  case,  it  is  impossible  for  any  mortal  to  know,  except  from 
the  Lord :  wherefore  it  is  expedient  here  to  premise,  that  of  the  Lord's  Divine  Mercy 
it  has  been  granted  me  now  for  several  years  to  be  constantly  and  uninterruptedly 
in  the  fellowship  of  spirits  and  angels,  to  hear  them  speak,  and  in  turn  to  speak 
with  them ;  hence  it  has  been  granted  me  to  hear  and  see  astonishing  things 
which  are  in  another  life,  which  have  never  come  to  the  knowledge  of  any  man, 
nor  into  his  idea..  I  have  there  been  instructed  concerning  different  kinds  of  spir- 
its ;  concerning  the  state  of  souls  after  death;  concerning  hell,  or  the  lamentable 
state  of  the  unfaithful ;  concerning  heaven,  or  the  most  happy  state  of  the  faith- 


/ 


( 


( 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

fill ;  especially  concerning  the  doctrine  of  faith  which  is  acknowledged  in  the 
universal  heaven;  on  which  subjects,  by  the  divine  mercy  of  the  Lord,  more 
will  be  said  in  the  following  pages."— ^.  C.  1-5. 

"  The  historicals  are  what  represent  the  Lord  ;  the  words  themselves  are  sig- 
nificative of  the  things  which  are  represented.  But  Ijeing  historical,  the  mind  of 
the  reader  cannot  but  be  detained  in  the  facts  related,  [larticnlarly  at  this  day, 
when  most  persons,  and  nearly  all,  do  not  believe  that  there  exi.sts  an  internal 
sense,  still  less  in  each  single  word  ;  nor,  possibly,  will  they  yet  acknowledge  it, 
notwithstanding  it  lias  been  thus  far  so  manifestly  shown  ;  and  tliis  also  by  rea- 
son that  the  internal  sense  appears  so  to  recede  from  the  literal,  as  to  be  scarce 
discernible.  But  they  may  kuo'v  it  from  this  consideration  alone,  that  the  his- 
toricals can  by  no  means  be  the  Word,  because  in  them,  separate  from  the  inter- 
nal sense,  there  is  no  more  of  divinity  than  in  any  other  history;  but  the  inter- 
nal sense  makes  it  to  be  divine.  That  the  internal  sense  is  the  W^ord  itself,  ap- 
pears from  many  things  which  are  revealed  ;  as,  '  Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called  my 
Son,' Matt.  ii.  15:  besides  many  other  passages.  The  Lord  himself,  also,  after 
his  resurrection,  taught  his  disciples  what  was  written  concerning  him  in  Moses 
and  the  prophets,  Luke  xxiv.  27 ;  thus  that  there  is  nothing  written  in  the  Word 
but  what  has  respect  to  him,  his  kingdom,  and  the  church.  These  are  the  spir- 
itual and  celestial  contents  of  the  Word ;  wliereas  those  contained  in  the  literal 
sense  are  for  the  most  part  worldly,  corporeal,  and  earthly,  such  as  can  by  no 
means  constitute  the  Word  of  the  Lord.  Men  at  this  day  are  of  such  a  character, 
that  they  perceive  only  such  matters  as  these,  and  scarcely  know  what  spiritual 
and  celestial  things  are.  It  was  otherwise  with  the  men  of  the  Most  Ancient  and 
Ancient  Churches,  who,  should  they  live  at  this  day,  and  read  the  Word,  would 
not  at  all  attend  to  the  literal  sense,  which  they  would  regard  as  none,  but  to  the 
internal  sense ;  they  are  exceedingly  surprised  that  the  Word  is  not  thus  perceived 
by  all;  wherefore,  also,  all  the  books  of  the  ancients  were  so  written,  as  to  mean 
iu  their  interior  sense  otherwise  than  in  the  literal  sense." — A.  C.  1540. 

Now  we  have  only  to  recur  to  the  declaration  of  Christ  himself  in  Luke  xxiv. 
25,  27,  44,  to  be  convinced  that  he  recognizes  the  truth  of  the  principle  here  as- 
serted, "  0  fools,  and  slow  of  heart  to  believe  all  that  the  prophets  have  spoken  ! 
and  beginning  at  Moses,  and  all  the  prophets,  he  expounded  unto  them  in  all  the 
scriptures  the  things  concerning  himself.  And  he  said  unto  them.  These  are  the 
words  which  I  spake  unto  you  while  I  was  yet  with  you  that  all  things  must  be 
fulfilled  which  were  written  in  the  law  of  Moses,  and  in  the  Prophets,  and  in  the 
Psalms  concerning  me."  So  also.  Rev.  xix.  10, "  The  testimony  of  Jesus  is  the  spirit 
of  prophecy."  From  tliis  it  is  obvious  that  the  central  theme  of  the  Word  is^, 
Jegus  himself;  but  Jesus  is  Jehovah,  and  Jehovah  is  the  Lord.  Swedenborg's) 
doctrine  on  this  head  receives  therefore  direct  confirmation  from  the  highest 
source.  "  The  Lord's  frequent  declarations,  that  in  Him  are  to  be  consummated 
and  are  consummated  all  things  contained  in  the  Scripture,  involve  those  things 
which  are  in  the  internal  sense  of  the  Word,  for  it  is  there  treated  solely  concern- 
ing the  Lord's  kingdom,  and  in  the  supreme  sense  concerning  the  Lord  Himself. 
In  that  sense  all  and  single  things,  even  to  every  iota,  or  to  every  least 
point,  treat  of  the  Lord." — {A.  C.  7933.)  Again,  "  The  Lord  appears  manifestly 
in  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word.  From  that  sense  it  is  discovered  not  only  that 
He  is  the  Word,  that  is,  divine  truth  itself,  and  further  that  He  is  the  inmost  of  the 
Word,  and  thence  the  all  thereof,  but  also  that  He  is  the  one  God,  in  whom  there 
is  a  trinity,  consequently  the  only  God  of  heaven  and  earth" — {A.  E.  1232.) 
What  disparagement  do  we  read  in  all  this  to  the  superlative  dignity  and  sanc- 
tity of  the  Holy  Volume 

Another  important  point  standing  in  direct  relation  with  the  present  theme  is 


62 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


the  distinction  between  apparent  and  real  truth  to  be  recognized  in  reading  the 
Word.  This  will  be  seen  to  be  a  subject  of  vastly  more  interest  than  would  be 
imagined  from  its  bare  announcement.  The  following  paragraphs  will  disclose 
its  bearing.    The  text  is  Gen.  xi.  7,  "  Let  us  go  down,"  &c. 

"  Hence  it  may  appear  what  is  the  nature  of  the  sense  of  the  letter,  for  Jeho- 
vah does  not  go  down,  inasmuch  as  going  down  cannot  be  predicated  of  the 
Lord,  because  he  is  always  in  the  snpremes ;  nor  does  Jehovah  see  whether  a 
thing  be  so  or  not,  for  neither  can  such  seeing  be  predicated  of  the  Lord,  inas- 
much as  he  knows  all  and  everything  from  eternity  :  hut  still  it  is  so  expressed, 
because  with  man  it  appears  as  if  it  was  so ;  for  man  is  in  inferiors,  and  when 
anything  there  exists,  he  does  not  consider,  nor  even  know,  how  the  case  is 
with  superiors,  so  neither  how  they  flow  in;  for  his  thought  reaches  no  further 
than  to  those  things  which  are  nearest  to  him,  and  hence  he  cannot  perceive 
otherwise,  than  that  going  down  and  seeing  signify  something  similar  to  what 
is  implied  in  the  expressions ;  and  so  much  the  more  when  he  imagines  that  no 
one  is  acquainted  with  what  he  thinks;  besides  that  he  has  no  other  idea  than 
that  it  is  (to  descend)  from  what  is  high,  and  when  from  God,  that  it  is  from  the 
highest,  when  yet  it  is  not  from  the  highest,  but  from  the  inmost.  Hence  it  may 
appear  what  is  the  nature  of  the  sense  of  the  letter,  viz.  that  it  is  according  to 
'  appearances,  and  that  if  it  were  not  according  to  appearance,  no  one  would  un- 
*  derstand  and  acknowledge  the  Word,  consequently  no  one  would  receive  it:  but 
the  angels  are  not  thus  in  appearances  as  man  is,  wherefore  the  Word,  whilst 
as  to  the  letter  it  is  for  man,  as  to  the  internal  sense  is  for  the  angels,  and  also 
for  those  men.  to  whom,  by  the  Divine  Mercy  of  the  Lord,  it  is  given  to  be  as 
.(angels  duraig their  life  in  the  world." — A.  C.  2242. 

"  It  is  frequently  said  in  the  Word,  that  Jehovah  destroys,  but  in  an  internal 
'  sense  is  understood,  that  man  destroj^s  himself,  for  Jehovah  or  the  Lord  destroys 
no  one;  but  whether  it  appears  as  if  it  was  from  Jehovah  or  the  Lord,  because 
He  sees  all  and  everything,  and  rules  all  and  everything,  it  is  thus  expressed  in 
the  Word  throughout,  to  the  intent  that  men  may  be  thereby  kept  in  this  most 
general  idea,  that  all  things  are  under  the  eyes  of  the  Lord,  and  all  things  under 
his  influence  and  government,  in  which  idea  when  they  are  once  established, 
"  they  may  afterwards  easily  be  instructed ;  for  explications  of  the  Word,  as  to  the 
internal  sense,  are  nothing  else  but  the  particulars  which  elucidate  a  general  idea. 
'.  A  further  purpose  herein  is,  that  they  who  are  not  in  love,  may  be  kept  in  fear, 
and  may  thus  be  impressed  with  awe  towards  the  Lord,  and  flee  to  Him  for  de- 
hverance :  hence  it  is  evident,  that  there  is  no  harm  in  believing  the  sense  of  the 
\  letter,  although  the  internal  sense  teaches  otherwise,  provided  it  be  done  in  sim- 
!  plicity  of  heart.    The  angels,  who  are  in  the  internal  sense  of  the  Word,  are  so 
far  from  thinking  that  Jehovah  or  the  Lord  destroys  any  one,  that  they  cannot 
even  bear  the  idea  of  such  a  thing,  and  therefore  when  this  and  similar  passages 
in  the  Word  are  read  by  man,  the  sense  of  the  letter  is  cast  as  it  were  behind 
them,  till  at  length  it  comes  to  this,  that  evil  itself  is  what  destroys  man,  and 
that  the  Lord  destroys  no  one." — A.  C.  2395. 

"  What  appearances  are  may  appear  manifestly  from  those  passages  in  the 
Word,  where  it  is  spoken  according  to  appearances ;  there  are  however  degrees 
of  the  appearances  of  truth ;  natural  appearances  of  truth  are  mostly  fallacies, 
but  when  they  liave  place  with  those  who  are  in  good,  they  are  then  not  to  be 
called  fallacies,  but  appearances,  and  even  truths  in  some  respect,  for  the  good 
which  is  in  them,  and  in  which  is  the  divine,  causes  their  essence  to  be  different; 
but  rational  appearances  of  truth  are  more  and  more  interior ;  in  them  are  the 
heavens,  that  is,  the  angels  who  are  in  the  heavens ;  that  some  idea  may  be  had 
what  the  appearances  of  truth  are,  let  the  following  cases  serve  for  illustration. 
I.  Man  believes  that  he  is  reformed  and  regenerated  by  the  truth  of  faith,  but 
this  is  an  appearance,  he  is  reformed  and  regenerated  by  the  good  of  faith,  that 
is,  by  charity  towards  the  neighbor,  and  love  to  the  Lord.  II.  Man  believes  that 
truth  gives  to  perceive  what  is  good,  because  it  teaches,  but  this  is  an  appeair- 
aace,  it  is  good  which  gives  to  truth  to  perceive,  for  good  is  the  soul,  or  hfe  of 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


63 


truth,  in.  Man  believes  that  truth  introduces  to  good,  when  he  live.s  according 
to  the  truth  which  he  ha,s  learnt,  but  it  is  good  which  flows  into  truth,  and  intro- 
duces it  to  itself.  IV.  It  appears  to  man  that  truth  perfects  good,  when  yet  good 
perfects  truth.  V.  Good.s  of  life  appear  to  man  as  the  fruits  of  faith,  but  they 
are  the  fruits  of  charity  :  from  these  few  cases  it  may  in  some  measure  be  known 
what  the  appearances  of  truth  are  ;  such  appearances  are  innumerable. — A.  C 
3207. 

"  I  have  conversed  with  good  spirits,  that  many  things  in  the  Word,  and  more 
than  any  one  could  believe,  are  spoken  according  to  appearances,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  fallacies  of  the  senses;  as  that  Jehovah  is  iu  wrath,  anger,  and  fury, 
against  the  wicked,  that  he  rejoices  to  destroy  them  and  blot  them  out,  yea,  that 
he  slays  them.  But  these  modes  of  speaking  were  used,  that  persuasions  and^ 
lusts  might  not  be  broken,  but  might  be  bent:  for  to  speak  otherwise  than  maru 
conceives,  which  is  from'  appearances,  fallacies,  and  jDcrsuasions,  would  have) 
been  to  sow  seed  in  the  water,  and  to  speak  what  would  instantly  be  rejected,} 
Nevertheless,  those  things  may  serve  as  common  vessels  for  the  containing  of 
things  spiritual  and  celestial,  since  it  may  be  insinuated  into  them,  that  all  things 
are  from  the  Lord  ;  afterwards,  that  the  Lord  permits,  but  that  all  evil  is  from 
diabolical  spirits ;  next,  that  the  Lord  provides  and  disposes,  that  evils  may  be 
turned  into  goods;  lastly,  that  nothing  but  good  is  from  the  Lord.  Thus  the 
sense  of  the  letter  perishes  as  it  ascends,  and  becomes  spiritual,  afterward^  ce- 
lestial, and  lastly  divine." — A.  C.  1S74. 

"  The  devastation  of  the  church  is  here  attributed  to  the  angel,  in  the  same  sense 
in  which  it  is  elsewhere  iu  the  Word  attributed  to  the  Lord ;  but  this  is  only  said 
of  him  in  the  sense  of  the  letter,  but  it  is  not  so  understood  in  the  spiritual  sense, 
for  truth  in  the  sense  of  the  letter,  is  as  a  face  transparent  through  a  veil,  but 
truth  in  the  spiritual  sense  is  as  the  face  uncovered ;  or  truth  in  the  literal  sense 
is  as  a  cloud,  but  truth  in  the  spiritual  sense  is  as  light  and  the  splendor  thereof; 
or  truth  in  the  literal  sense  is  what  appears  as  truth  before  the  sensual  man,  but 
truth  in  the  spiritual  sense  is  what  appears  before  the  spiritual  rational  man;  as, 
for  example,  in  the  Word  it  is  said  of  the  sun,  that  it  rises,  makes  progress,  sets, 
and  makes  days  and  years,  thus  altogether  according  to  appearance  before  the 
sensual  man ;  but  still  the  rational  man  thinks  of  the  sun  as  immoveable,  and  of 
the  earth  as  making  progress  ;  hence  it  is  evident  that  the  understanding  thinks 
inversely  of  those  things  which  appear  before  the  senses,  in  order  that  they  may 
be  presented  before  us  in  the  light  of  truth.  The  case  is  the  same  with  the  things 
which  are  here  said  in  the  Apocalypse  concerning  Him  who  sat  upon  the  white 
cloud,  and  concerning  the  angels,  viz.,  that  they  thrust  in  the  sickle  into  the  har- 
vest, and  reap  it,  and  that  they  gather  the  clusters  of  the  vine  of  the  earth,  and 
cast  them  into  the  wine-press  of  the  anger  of  God;  which  things  are  said  in  like 
manner  according  to  appearances  before  the  sensual  man,  but  are  to  be  inverted 
and  understood  according  to  their  .spii'itual  sense.  From  these  considerations  it 
may  also  appear,  that  the  sensual  man,  such  as  man  is  in  the  ages  of  infancy  and 
childhood,  as  likewise  the  simple-minded,  may  think  of  and  believe  these  and 
similar  other  things  according  to  the  sense  of  the  letter,  as  that  God  takes  away 
good  and  truth  from  men  on  account  of  their  wickedness,  but  an  adult  man  who 
desires  to  be  wise,  will  not  explain  such  things  so  as  to  make  God  do  them,  as 
that  he  takes  away  from  man  all  good  and  truth,  and  infuses  in  the  place  thereof 
what  is  evil  and  false,  or  that  He  devastates  the  church,  and  that  he  is  angry  and 
full  of  wrath,  for  if  a  wise  adult  should  explain  such  things  according  to  the 
sense  of  the  letter,  and  confirm  the  same  by  reasonings,  he  would  thereby  de- 
stroy genuine  truth  itself,  such  as  it  is  in  heaven,  and  consequently  shut  heaven 
against  himself;  for  how  is  it  possible  for  any  one  to  enter  heaven  with  the  faith 
that  God  is  angry,  revengeful,  that  he  punishes,  and  the  like,  when  the  angels  of 
heaven  are  in  the  perception  that  God  is  never  angry,  never  revenges,  nor  pun- 
ishes any  one ;  would  they  not  avert  themselves  from  him,  and  bid  him  to 
depart,  and  immediately  shut  the  door  after  him thus  also  it  is  that  heaven  be- 
comes shut  to  those  who,  during  their  abode  in  the  world,  explain  the  literal 
sense  of  the  Word  so  as  to  destroy  the  divine  truth  in  the  heavens,  which  truth 
is  also  the  same  with  that  of  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word,  which  is  contained 


64 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


in  singular  the  truths  of  the  natural  sense  which  constitute  the  sense  of  the  letter 
of  the  Word."— J.  E.  916. 

He  is  also  elsewhere  very  express  as  to  the  conditions  under  which  such 
appearances  do  not  exert  a  hurtful  influence  upon  those  who  are  governed  by  them, 
as  in  the  following  passage. 

"  From  these  and  very  many  other  passages  of  the  Word  it  may  be  manifest, 
that  it  is  spoken  according  to  appearances  with  man,  wherefore  whoever  is  dis- 
posed to  confirm  false  principles  by  the  appearances  according  to  which  the 
Word  is  written,  may  do  so  from  things  innumerable ;  but  there  is  a  difference 
between  confirming  false  principles  by  passages  from  the  Word,  and  believing 
-i^  in  simplicity  what  is  spoken  in  the  Word.  He  who  confirms  false  principles, 
'?fi.rst  assumes  some  principle  of  his  own,  from  which  he  will  not  depart,  nor  in 
the  least  remit,  but  collects  and  accumulates  corroborating  proofs  from  every 
quarter,  thus  also  from  the  Word,  till  he  is  so  thoroughly  self-persuaded  that  he 
can  no  longer  see  the  truth.  But  -whosoever  in  simplicity,  or  out  of  a  simple 
heart,  believes,  does  not  first  assume  principles,  but  thinks  what  is  spoken  to  be 
true,  because  the  Lord  spake  it;  and  if  he  is  instructed  in  the  right  understand- 
ing thereof,  by  other  sayings  of  the  Word,  he  then  acquiesces,  and  in  his  heart 
rejoices.  Even  he  who  through  simplicity  believes  tliat  the  Lord  is  wrathful, 
that  he  ptuiishes,  repents,  and  grieves,  whereby  he  is  restrained  from  evil,  and 
led  to  do  good,  is  not  st  all  hurt  thereby,  for  he  thus  believes  also  that  the  Lord 
sees  all  and  everything  smd  when  he  is  in  such  faith,  he  is  afterwards  enlight- 
ened in  other  things,  in  another  life,  if  not  before  :  it  is  different  with  those  who 
are  self-persuaded  in  consequence  of  principles  assumed,  the  foul  love  of  self 
and  of  the  world  conspiring. "--J.  C.  .589. 

Closely  connected  with  this  is  the  doctrine  of  fallacies  appertaining  to  the  sen- 
sual or  natural  man,  a«d  with  which  real  truth  comes  into  conflict  in  the  mind 
and  often  can  expel  only  after  a  long  struggle. 

"  Inasmuch  as  few  know  what  the  fallacies  of  the  senses  are,  and  few  believe 
that  they  induce  so  great  shade  upon  things  rational,  and  most  especially  upon 
the  spiritual  things  of  faith,  even  so  as  to  extinguish  ihem,  principally  when 
man  at  the  same  time  is  in  the  delight  of  the  lusts  of  self-love  and  the  love  of  the 
world,  it  is  ]icrmitlcd  to  illustrate  the  subjects  by  examples,  first  what  the  falla- 
cies of  the  senses  are  which  are  merely  natural,  or  in  those  things  which  are  in 
nature,  and  next  conceniing  the  fallacies  of  tlie  senses  in  spiritual  things.  I.  It 
is  a  fallacy  of  sense  merely  natural,  or  which  is  in  nature,  that  it  is  believed  that 
the  sun  revolves  once  every  day  round  about  this  earth,  and  at  the  same  time 
also  the  heaven  witlr  all  the  stars :  and  although  it  be  said,  that  it  is  incredible 
because  impossible,  that  so  great  an  ocean  of  fire  as  the  sun  is,  and  not  only  the  sun 
but  also  innumerable  stars,  without  any  change  of  place  from  each  other,  slioulJ 
every  day  perform  one  such  revolution,  and  although  it  be  added,  that  it  may  be 
seen  from  the  planets,  that  the  earth  performs  a  dun'nal  and  annual  motion  l)y 
circumrototions^u(l  cjrcumgyratiouff  inasmuch  as  the  planets  also  are  earths, 
and  some  of  them  likewi^e  have  moons  around  them,  and  that  it  has  been  ob- 
served that  they,  in  like  manner  as  our  earth,  perform  such  motions,  namely, 
diurnal  and  annual,  still  with  the  generality  the  fallacy  of  sense  prevails,  that  it 
is  so  as  the  eye  sees.  11.  It  is  a  fallacy  of  sense  merely  natural,  or  in  nature,  that 
there  is  only  one  single  atmosphere^and  merely  this  purer  successively  in  dillcr- 
ent  part-s,  and  that  where  it  ceases  there  is  a  vacuum;  the  external  sensual  of 
man,  when  it  alone  is  consulted,  does  not  apprehend  otherwise.  111.  It  is  a  fal- 
lacy of  sense  merely  natural,  that  from  first  creation  there  has  been  impressed  on 
seeds  a  quality  of  growing  up  into  trees  and  fiowers,  and  of  rendering  them- 
selves prolific,  and  that  thence  is  the  existence  and  subsistence  of  all  things ;  and 
if  it  be  urged,  that  it  is  not  possible  for  anything  to  subsist  unless  it  perpetually 
exists,  according  to  the  established  maxim  that  subsistence  is  perpetual  exist- 
ence, also  that  everything  which  is  not  connected  with  something  prior  to  itself 
falls  iiuo  nothing,  still  the  sensual  of  the  body,  and  the  thought  from  that  sen- 


•I 


i 


REPI-Y  TO  DR  WOODS. 


65 


sual,  does  not  apprehend  it,  nor  that  all  and  single  things  subsist  as  they  existed, 
by  influx  from  the  spiritual  world,  thiit  is,  through  the  spiritual  world  from  the 
Divine.    IV.  Hence  it  is  a  fallacy  of  sense  merely  natural,  that  there  are  simple  '' 
substances,  which  are  monaSs  and  atoms,  for  whatever  is  within  the  external  V 
sensual,  this  the  natural  man  believes,  that  it  is  such  a  thing  or  nothing.    V.  It 
is  a  fallacy  of  sense  merely  natural,  that  all  things  are  of  nature  and  from  nature, 
and  that  indeed  in  purer  or  interior  nature  there  is  something  which  is  not  appre- 
hended ;  but  if  it  be  said,  that  within  or  above  nature  tiiere  is  the  spiritual  and 
celestial,  this  is  rejected,  and  it  is  believed  that  unless  it  be  natural,  it  is  nothing. 
VI.  It  is  a  fallacy  of  sense,  that  the  body  alone  lives,  and  that  its  life  perishes 
when  it  dies;  the  sensual  does  not  at  all  apprehend,  that  the  internal  man  is  in 
single  things  of  the  external,  and  that  the  internal  man  is  within  nature  in  the 
spiritual  world :  lience  neither  does  he  believe,  because  he  does  not  apprehend, 
that  he  shall  live  after  death,  unless  he  be  again  clothed  with  a  body.  VII. 
Hence  there  is  a  fallacy  of  sense,  that  man  can  no  more  live  after  death  than  the 
beasts,  by  reason  that  these  also  have  a  life  in  many  respects  similar  to  the  life 
of  man,  otdy  that  man  is  a  more  perfect  animal.    The  sensual  does  not  appre- 
hend, that  is,  the  man  who  thinks  and  concludes  from  the  sensual,  that  man  is 
above  the  beasts  and  has  a  superior  life  in  this,  because  he  can  think,  not  only 
concerning  the  causes  of  things,  but  also  concersiing  the  Divine  and  by  faith  and 
love  be  conjoined  with  the  Divine,  and  also  receive  influx  thence,  and  appro- 
priate it  to  himself,  so  that  in  man,  because  there  is  given  a  reciprocal,  there  is 
given  reception,  which  is  in  no  wise  the  case  with  the  beasts.    VIII.  It  is  a  faI-b'7  tvC 
lacy  thence,  that  the  living  principle  itself  with  man,  which  is  called  the  soul,  is>c^  , 
only  something  ethereal,  or  flamy,  which  is  dissipated  when  man  dies  ;  and  thatV' 
it  resides  either  in  the  heart,  or  in  the  brain,  or  in  some  part  thereof,  and  that 
hence  it  rules  the  body  as  a  machine ;  that  the  internal  man  is  in  single  things  of 
the  external,  that  the  eye  does  not  see  from  itself  but  from  that  internal  man,  nor  > 
the  ear  hear  from  itself  but  from  that,  the  sensual  man  does  not  apprehend.    IX. ' 
It  is  a  fallacy  of  sense,  that  light  cannot  be  given  from  any  other  source  than 
from  the  sun  or  elementary  fire,  nor  heat  from  any  other  source  than  from  the 
same;  that  there  is  light  in  which  is  intelligence, and  heat  in  which  is  celestial 
love,  and  that  all  the  angels  are  in  that  light  and  in  that  heat,  the  sensual  does 
not  apprehend.    X.  It  is  a  fallacy  of  sense,  that  man  believes  that  he  lives  of 
himself,  or  that  he  has  in-given  life,  for  to  tlie  sensual  it  does  not  appear  other- 
wise; that  it  is  the  Divine  alone  which  has  life  of  itself,  and  thus  that  there  is 
only  one  life,  and  that  the  lives  m  the  world  are  only  recipient  forms,  the  sensual 
does  not  at  all  comprehend.    XI.  The  sensual  man  from  fallacy  believes  that 
adulteries  are  allowed,  for  from  the  sensual  he  concludes,  that  marriages  are  only 
with  a  view  to  order  for  the  sake  of  the  education  of  the  offspring,  and  if  that 
order  is  not  destroyed,  that  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference  from  what  [father]  the 
offspring  comes;  also  that  the  conjugial  is  like  other  lasciviousness  except  as 
being  allowed  ;  thus  also,  that  it  would  not  be  contrary  to  order  to  marry  more  j  ■  * 
wives  than  one,  if  the  christian  world  did  not  from  the  sacred  scripture  prohibit]?  y 
it;  mtlie  told  them,  that  there  is  a  correspondence  between  the  heavenly  mar^-'-'' 
riage  and  marriages  in  the  earths,  and  that  no  one  can  have  in  himself  the  conju- 
gial,  unless  he  be  in  spiritual  truth  and  good,  also  that  the  genuine  conjugial  can- 
not be  given  between  a  husband  and  several  wives,  and  hence  that  marriages 
are  in  themselves  holy,  these  things  the  sensual  man  rejects  as  nothing.    XII.-  It  f- 
is  a  fallacy  of  sense,  that  the  Lord's  kingdom,  or  heaven,  is  of  a  quality  resem- a 
bling  an  earthly  kingdom  in  this,  that  there  it  is  joy  and  happiness  for  one  to  he  a 
greater  than  another,  and  thence  in  glory  above  another ;  for  the  sensual  does  not  y 
at  all  comprehend  what  is  meant  by  the  least  being  greatest,  or  the  last  first;  if  u 
it  be  told  them,  that  joy  in  heaven  or  to  the  angels  is  to  serve  others  by  doing  V 

•  them  good,  without  any  reflection  of  merit  and  retribution,  this  comes  as  some-  v 
thing  sad.    Hill.  It  is  a  fallacy  of  sense,  that  good  works  are  meritorious ;  and  y  p 
that  to  do  well  to  any  one  for  the  sake  of  self  is  a  good  work.    XIV.  It  is  also  a^^  7 
q  ^  ^fallacy~6f  sense,  that  man  is  saved  by  faith  alone ;  and  that  faith  can  be  given  ^     "  ■  I. 
v^here^  Aere_is  not  charity;  also  that  the  faith,  not  the  life,  remains  after  death."         '  j 
OTEe  case  is  similar  in  very  many  other  instances;  wherefore  when  the  sensual 

^  bears  rule  in  man,  then  the  rational  illustrated  from  the  Divine  sees  nothing  and 

5 


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REPLY  TO  DR  WOODS. 


is  in  thick  darkness,  and  then  it  is  believed,  that  all  that  is  rational,  which  is 
concluded  from  the  sensual." — A.  C.  5084. 

I  have  been  perhaps  unduly  full  in  these  citations,  but  it  has  arisen  from  an 
extreme  anxiety  to  present  a  great  subject  in  its  true  light.    It  is  so  common  to 
represent  Swedenborg's  doctrine  of  the  spiritual  sense  as  the  nepliis  ultra  of  ex- 
travagance and  absurdity,  that  the  utmost  solicitude  is  warranted  as  to  the  full 
and  fair  exhibition  of  the  theory  in  reference  to  the  fundamental  principles  on 
which  it  rests.    Its  opponents  seem,  for  the  most  part,  to  have  no  conception  of 
anything  like  a  psychological  basis  for  what  strikes  them  as  the  most  outre,  gro- 
tesque, and  fantastic  of  all  things,  in  Swedenborg's  mterpretations.    Yet  we  here 
see  the  whole  matter  resolving  itself  into  a  law  as  fixed  and  invariable  as  the  law 
of  creation  itself,  with  which,  in  fact,  it  becomes  almost  identical.    The  Bible 
rises  under  the  process  into  a  new  revelation,  clothed  with  a  sublunity,  sanctity, 
and  divinity  of  which  we  had  not  previously  the  remotest  conception.    It  stands 
before  us  the  living  Oracle  of  Truth,  which  we  no  longer  separate  firom  the  very 
being  of  its  Author.    He  is  Himself  in  his  own  truth.    New  treasures  of  wisdom 
gleam  forth  from  its  pages,  and  the  most  barren  details  of  history,  the  recorded 
rounds  of  obsolete  rituals,  the  dryest  catalogues  of  names,  the  most  trivial  | 
specifications  of  dates,  places,  and  enactments,  once  touched  with  the  mystic 
wand  of  the  spiritual  sense  teem  with  the  riches  of  angelic  conceptions.  The 
<  cosmogou}'^ af  Genesis  becomes  the  birth  register  of  the  new-born  soul.  The 
garden  of  Eden  smiles  in  eveiy  renovated  mind  in  the  intelligence  and  affection 
■  '  emblemed  in  its  trees,  and  fruits,  and  flowers.    The  watering  streams  are  the 
fructifying  knowledges  and  truths  of  wisdom,  which  make  increase  of  the  V) 
spiritual  man.    Tlie  Tree  of  Knowledge — the  Tree  of  Life— the  wily  serpent —  ^  '-' 
fare  all  within  us  and  within  us  all.    The  scenes  transacted  mthe  Paradisaic  pur- '  7 
.''iieus  are  more  or  less  the  scenes  of  our  own  individual  experience,  and  the  nar- 
irative  ceases  to  be  looked  upon  merely  as  the  chronicle  of  events  that  transpired 
^  (thousands  of  years  before  we  were  born. 

But  I  easily  foresee  the  grand  objection.    The  siiiritual  sense  destroys  the  lite- 
^  ral  sense.    It  turns  the  history  of  creation  into  an  allegory,  and  leaves  us  with- 
I  out  a  document  as  to  the  origin  of  tilings.    And  suppose  this  be  so,  still  is  it  not 
C.3  possible  to  array  an  amount  of  evidence  in  favor  of  the  position,  that  shall  coun- 
,  tervail  the  force  of  every  objection  ?    This  is  worth  inquiry. 

Nothing,  I  venture  to  say,  is  more  really  beyond  debate,  than  that  the  exposi- 
tions hitherto  given  of  the  inspired  cosmogony  of  Moses  have  failed  clearly  to 
establish  its  consistency  with  the  results  of  geological  science.  I  am  well  aware 
that  the  assertion  is  reiterated  from  a  thousand  tongues,  that  there  is  no  real  dis- 
crepancy in  the  case— that  even  granting  Geology  all  that  it  demands  on  the  score 
of  time,  yet  still  the  sacred  text  is  so  framed  as  to  create  no  conllict  between  the 
written  and  the  unwritten  record.  But  I  yet  hesitate  not  to  say,  that  no  inter- 
pretation hitherto  proposed  by  those  who  understand  the  Mosaic  narrative  as  a 
veritable  historic  document,  is  in  all  points  consistent  with  the  inductive  results 
of  modern  Geology,  and  of  this  science  it  is  affirmed  that  although  "  it  is  but 
of  very  modern  origin,  and  its  researches  have  as  yet  been  carried  but  little  way, 
compared  with  what  we  must  reasonably  expect  they  will  be ;  yet  to  that  small 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  67 

results,  which  arc  real,  settled,  and  inductjve'truths,  which  no  subsequent  inves- 
tigations can  overthrow;  which,  in  fact,  can  only  be  called  in  question  on 
grounds  which,  if  true,  mast  overthrow,  not  only  Geology,  but  all  inchictive 
science  whatever,  that  is,  the  whole  extent  of  human  knowledge,  and  render  our 
reasoning  faculties  useless,  and  all  iihilosophy  a  mere  illusion." — Kind's  Bihl. 
Cyclop.  {Art.  Creation.) 

Among  the  theories  of  solution  advanced,  one  proposes  to  consider  the  first 
verse  of  Genesis  as  announcing,  in  a  general  way,  the  original  creation  of  the 
primordial  matter  or  substance,  out  of  which  the  heavens  and  the  earth  were  sub- 
sequently fashioned  and  arranged,  through  the  period  of  the  six  days,  into  their 
present  form  and  order.  On  this  interpretation,  the  first  verse  is  held  to  stand 
separate  and  independent  of  what  follows,  the  break  between  them  allowing  all 
the  time  that  Geology  may  require  to  work  its  stupendous  changes.  But  to  this 
it  is  objected,  (1.)  That  it  does  violence  to  the  general  impression  which,  would 
naturally  be  conveyed  by  the  language.  (2. )  That  the  "  heavens"  and  the  "  earth"  -,. 
said  to  be  created  in  the  first  verse  do  not  easily  yield  such  an  abstract  and  met- 
aphysical idea  as  that  oi  clementanj  malicr,  and  that  they  are  obviously  to  be  un- 
derstood as  identical  with  the  "  heavens"'  and  the  "  earth"  which  the  writer  im- 
mediately goes  on  to  describe,  v.  6-9.  This  makes  the  first  verse  a  compend  of 
the  subsequent  amplified  account  of  the  creation.  (3.)  That  the  actual  discoveries 
of  Geology  make  it  clear  that  various  races  of  animals  lived  and  died  during  the 
very  interval  assigned  between  the  original  creation  and  the  si.x  days'  work,  and 
yet  the  text  brings  the  creation  of  animals  into  the  fifth  and  sixth  days. 

Another  hypothesis  is  that  of  the  lengthened  days,  and  which  supposes  that  the 
succession  of  geological  beds  exhibits  a  correspondence  with  the  recorded  order 
of  formations  in  Genesis.  But  to  this  theory  it  is  again  objected,  (1.)  That  the 
most  accurate  investigations  do  not  establish  the  fact  of  such  a  correspondence. 
(2.)  That  such  a  figurative  use  of  the  term  "  day,"  however  it  might  suit  with  a 
poetical  or  oratorical  style  of  diction,  were  scarcely  to  be  expected  in  a  plain  his- 
torical narrative.  (3.)  That  if  this  prolonged  duration  be  ascribed  to  each  of  the 
six  days  of  the  creation,  it  ought  in  fairness  to  hold  good  also  of  the  seventh ;  but 
here  the  theorists  go  back  to  the  ordinary  sense  of  a  natural  day. 

Other  attempted  modes  of  conciliation  may  be  pointed  out,  but,  like  the  preced- 
ing, they  still  labor  under  some  insuperable  difficulty  of  being  brought  into  har- 
mony with  the  demonstrated  facts  and  inevitable  inferences  of  Geology.  I  do 
not  scruple,  therefore,  to  aflirm  that  all  such  attempts  have,  without  exception, 
failed,  and  this  has  been  freely  admitted  even  by  learned  divines,  whose  reve- 
rence for  the  Scriptures  has  not  at  the  same  time  prevented  their  recognizing  the 
force  of  the  geological  argument.  Thus  the  Eev.  Bad^  Powelh^Professor  of 
Geometry  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  one  of  the  profoundest  writers  of  the  present 
day,  says  upon  this  subject:  "  With  regard  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  dis- 
crepancy thus  disclosed,  we  shall  observe,  that  it  is  not  a  case  merejy  involving 
the  question  of  the  literal  acceptation  of  a  Avord  or  phrase.  It  is  the  contradic- 
tion of  existing  monuments  of  past  events  with  the  obvious  sense  of  what  is  re- 
corded as  a  part  of  Divine  revelation,  in  the  form  of  a  circumstantial  narrative  of 
the  same  events.  And  the  discrepancy  is  not  one  with  any  theory,  or  partial 
discovery  of  science,  which  is  not  thoroughly  made  out,  and  which  future  inves- 
tigations may  modify  or  set  aside;  but  with  broad  primary  facts  which  involve 


.  1. 


68  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

nothing  hypothetical,  and  which  are  in  reality  identified  with  the  first  prmciples 
of  all  inductive  truth." — Kitto's  Bihl.  Cyclop.  {Art.  Cre.ition.) 

•  What  then,  in  this  exigency,  is  Swedenborg's  construction  of  the  Mosaic  re- 
cord,  which  construction,  be  it  observed,  was  given  to  the  world  before  Geology 
was  born,  and  therefore  could  not  have  been  proposed  with  a  view  to  meet  any 
difficulties  urged  on  this  score.  He  takes  it  at  once  out  of  all  relation  to  verita- 
ble literal  history,  and  instead  of  reading  in  it  the  account  of  a  ghysical  creation 
of  the  universe,  interprets  it  of  the  moral  re-creation  or  regeneration  of  man.* 

*  "  Tliey  who  do  not  tliink  beyond  tlie  sense  of  the  letter,  cannot  believe  otherwise  than 
that  the  creation,  which  is  described  in  the  first  and  second  chapters  of  Genesis,  denotes 
the  creation  of  the  universe,  and  that  tliere  were  six  days,  within  which  were  created  the 
heaven  and  the  earth,  the  sea,  and  all  things  which  are  in  thein,  and  at  length  man  to 
the  likeness  of  God  ;  but  who  cannot  see,  if  he  ponders  deeply  on  the  subject,  that  the 
creation  of  the  universe  is  not  there  meant ;  for  such  things  are  there  described  as  may 
be  kuown  from  common  sense  not  to  have  been  so  ;  as  that  there  were  days  before  the 
sun  and  the  moon,  and  that  there  was  light  and  darkness,  and  that  the  herbs  and  trees 
budded  forth  ;  and  yet  that  light  was  given  by  those  luminaries,  and  a  distinction  was 
made  into  light  and  darkness,  and  thus  days  were  made.    In  what  follows  in  the  history 
there  are  also  similar  things,  which  are  scarce  acknowledged  by  any  one  who  thinks  in- 
teriorly, to  be  possible,  as  that  the  woman  was  built  from  the  rib  of  the  man  ;  also  that 
two  trees  were  set  in  paradise,  the  fruit  of  one  of  which  it  was  forbidden  to  eat  ;  and 
that  a  serpent  from  one  discoursed  with  the  wife  of  the  man,  who  was  the  wisest  of 
mortals,  and  by  his  di.scourse,  which  was  from  the  mouth  of  the  serpent,  deceived  them 
both  ;  and  tliat  the  universal  human  race,  even  to  so  many  thousands  of  thousands,  was  on 
that  account  damned  to  hell;  these  and  similar  things  in  that  history  must  needs  ap- 
pear at  first  thought  paradoxes  to  those,  who  entertain  any  doubt  concerning  the  sancti- 
ty of  the  Word,  and  must  needs  afterwards  induce  them  to  deny  the  Divine  [being  or 
principle]  therein  :  nevertheless  it  is  to  be  noted,  that  all  and  singular  things  in  that  his- 
tory, even  to  the  smallest  iota,  are  Divine,  and  contain  in  them  arcana,  which  before 
the  angels  in  the  heavens  are  evident  as  in  clear  day  ;  the  reason  of  this  is,  because  the 
angels  do  not  see  the  sense  of  the  Word  according  to  the  letter,  but  according  to  those 
things  which  are  therein,  which  are  spiritual  and  celestial  things,  and  in  them  Divine 
things  ;  they,  when  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  is  read,  do  not  perceive  any  other  crea- 
tion, than  the  new  creation  of  man,  which  is  called  regeneration;  this  fregeneration] 
is  described  in  that  history  ;  and  by  paradise  the  wisdom  of  the  man  created  anew  ; 
by  the  two  trees  in  the  midst  thereof  the  two  faculties  of  that  man,  viz.  the  will  of  good 
by  the  tree  of  life,  and  the  understanding  of  truth  by  the  tree  of  science  ;  and  the  rea- 
son why  it  was  forbidden  to  eat  of  this  latter  tree  was,  becausf!  the  regenerate  man,  or 
he  that  is  created  anew,  ought  no  longer  to  be  led  by  the  understanding  of  truth,  but  by 
the  will  of  good,  and  if  otherwise  that  the  new  principle  of  his  life  perishes  ;  consequent- 
ly that  by  Adam,  or  man,  and  by  Eve  his  wife  was  there  meant  a  new  Church,  and 
by  eating  of  the  tree  of  science  the  fall  of  that  Church  from  good  to  truth,  consequently 
from  love  to  the  Lord  and  towards  the  neighbor  to  faith  without  those  loves,  and  this  by 
reasoning  from  the  intellectual  propriurn,  which  reasoning  is  the  serpent.    From  these 
considerations  it  is  evident,  that  the  historicals  concefriing  croaTToii,  aiul  concerning  the 
first  man,  and  concerning  paradise,  are  historicals  so  framed,  which  contain  in  them 
celestial  and  Divine  things,  and  this  according  to  the  manner  [of  writing]  received  in 
the  ancient  Churches;  which  manner  [of  writing]  also  ,vas  thence  derived  to  several 
who  were  out  of  the  Church,  who  in  like  manner  devised  historicals,  and  involved  ar- 
cana in  them  ;  as  is  evident  from  the  writers  of  the  ancient  times ;  for  in  the  ancient 
Churches  it  was  known,  what  such  things  as  are  in  the  world  signified  in  heaven  ;  nor 
■were  the  thingstransactedof  so  much  consequence  to  them  to  describe,  as  the  things  which 
■were  of  heaven  ;  these  latter  things  occupied  their  minds,  by  reason  that  they  thought 
more  interiorly  than  men  at  this  day,  and  thereby  communicated  with  angels,  on  which 
account  it  was  delightful  to  them  to  connect  such  things  ;  but  to  those  things  which 
■were  to  be  accounted  holy  in  the  Churches,  they  were  led  by  the  Lord  ;  hence  sucli 
■  things  neatly  contrived  as  fully  corresponded.    From  these  considerations  it  may  be 
manifest,  what  is  meant  by  heaven  and  earth  in  the  first  verse  of  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis,  viz.  the  Church  internal  and  external ;  that  those  things  are  signified  by  hea- 
ven and  earth,  is  manifest  also  from  passages  in  the  prophets,  where  mention  is  made 
of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  by  which  a  new  church  is  meant ;  hence  then  it  is 
evident  that  by  in  six  days  Jehovah  made  the  heaven  and  the  earth  and  the  sea,  is  sig- 
nified the  regeneration  and  vivification  of  those  things  which  are  in  the  internal  and 
.  in  the  external  man." — A.  C.  8891. 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


69 


Tliis  he  affirms  is  the  sense  which  the  angels  take  from  this  portion  of  the  Word, 
and  the  only  sense.  "  Tliey  know  nothing  at  all  wliich  is  of  the  letter,  not  even 
one  word,  what  it  proximately  signifies,  still  less  the  names  of  countries,  rivers, 
and  persons,  which  occur  so  frequently  in  the  historical  and  prophetical  parts. 
They  have  only  an  idea  of  the  things  signified  by  names;  as  by  Adam  in  Para- 
dise they  have  a  perception  of  die  Most  Ancient  Church,"  &c. 

Adam,  therefore,  on  this  interpretation,  is  not  the  name  of  an  individual,  butq^ 
a  generic  name 'of  the  race  existing  as  a  church,  and  the  peculiar  use  of  the  He-fl^ 
brew  article  certainly  favors  the  supposition,  for  it  is  an  undeniable  fact  that  the 
word,  with  four  or  five  exceptions,  invariably  occurs  in  the  original  in  a  form 
equivalent  to — "  the  Adam,"  i.  e.  the  collective  Adam  or  Mankind.    Thus  Gen.i  • 

vi.  1 , "  And  it  came  to  pass  when  men  began  to  multiply  on  the  face  of  the  earth.'V  

Heb.  "  when  the  Adam"  began  to  multiply.    "  The  reason,"  says  Swedenborg,^  ^ 

"  why  he  is  called  Adam  is,  because  the  Hebrew  word  Adam  signifies  Man ,-  but| 

that  he  is  never  by  name  properly  called  Adam,  but  Man,  is  very  evident  from  itsj,"^^' 

being  predicated  of  both  the  man  and  the  woman,  both  together  being  called  i(  ^^^^ 

man.    That  it  is  predicated  of  both,  every  one  may  see  from  the  words,  for  it  is  '< 

said, '  He  called  their  name  Adam  (or  man)  in  the  day  that  they  were  created.' 

In  like  manner  it  is  said  in  the  first  chapter,  '  Let  us  make  man  (Heb.  the  Adam) 

in  our  own  image,  and  let  them  have  dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,'  &c.  Hence 

it  may  appear  that  the  subject  treated  of  is  not  the  cre^ition  of  some  one  man  who 

was  the  first  of  mankind,  but  concerning  the  Most  Ancient  Church." — {A.  C.  478.)  '   

Now  whatever  may  be  the  interpretation,  here  stands  the  undeniable  fact,  that  ^  ^  ^ 
the  name  Adam  in  the  original  is  a  collective  and  not  an  individual  appellation ; 
and  this  fact  taken  in  connection  with  the  geological  difficulty  afi"ords  no  small 
evidence  that  some  other  than  the  strictly  hteral  construction  is  the  true  one. 
Let  us  weigh  then  a  little  more  attentively  the  interpretation  of  Swedenborg. 
Building  itself  upon  the  legitimate  plural  import  of  the  term  Adam,  it  makes  the 
history  in  the  first  few  chapters  the  history,  not  of  an  individual,  but  of  the  race 
in  some  indefinitely  distant  period  of  the  past,  and  composing  what  he  denomi- 
nates the  Most  Ancient  Church.  According  to  him  the  Scriptures  do  not  contain 
any  intimation  of  the  time  or  manner  of  the  first  creation  of  man.  It  leaves  the 
mind  free  to  throw  back  his  origin  into  the  most  remote  period  of  antiquity,  and  '  ^ 

make  him,  if  you  please,  coeval  with  some  of  the  extinct  races  of  huge  Masto- 
dons and  monsters  whose  embedded  remains  are  continually  at  this  day  being 
brought  to  light.  It  is  indeed  true  that  no  relics  of  human  skeletons  have  as  yet 
been  discovered  that  can  be  referred  to  a  period  beyond  what  is  called  the  histo- 
rical; but  the  progress  of  discovery  has  but  just  commenced,  and  we  cannot  ar- 
gue from  what  has  been  to  what  maij  be.*  And  when  we  take  into  view  the  fact  r 
that  the  chronological  archives  of  the  Hindoos,  the  Chinese,  and  the  Egyptians, 
wliich  have  never  yet  been  shown  to  be  fabulous,  and  which  are  only  disputed 
because  they  are  supposed  to  conflict  with  the  biblical  record,  carry  back  the 
origin  of  the  human  race  to  an  immensely  more  remote  period  than  the  Mosaic 
annals  when  literally  understood,  we  shall  have  no  occasion  to  be  surprised,  if 

*  The  recent  discovery,  near  Natches,  of  a  part  of  a  human  skeleton  embedded  among 
the  remains  of  animals  which  must  be  referred  to  a  period  vastly  beyond  th«t  usually 
ascribed  to  tlie  origin  of  the  human  race,  seems  to  require  a  qualification  of  this  lan- 
guage ;  but  it  is  one  vi^hich  I  can  well  afford  to  make. 


70 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


future  geological  discoveries  should  bring  to  light,  from  some  of  the  earlier  strata, 
the  fossil  remains  of  men  as  well  as  of  other  animals. 

,    From  this  view  it  follows,  as  j'ou  will  at  once  perceive,  that  the  fall  of  man 
''was  gradual — that  it  was  not  the  fail  of  a  single  individual,  but  the  progressive 
decline  and  deterioration  of  the  race  from  a  previous  state  of  integrity  to  a  state 
yof  aUenation,  rebellion,  corruption,  and  dee£ depravity.   The  race  havmg  existed 
through  a  long  tract  of  ages,  began  by  degrees  to  abuse  their  free  will,'and  though 
the  departure  at  first  was  very  slight,  yet  each  generation  advancing  a  little  far- 
ther in  the  downward  career  than  the  preceding,  the  collective  humanity  at  length 
lapsed  into  an  accumulation  of  evils  which  became  perpetuated  by  the  very  law 
'  of  their  being,  for  it  is  a  law  that  a  man  propagates  his  essential  life.    He  repro- 
duces his  inmost  self  in  his  children.!  And  in  this  matter  we  cannot  separate  the 
physical  from  the  moral.    A  man's  moral  life  affects  his  physical  life.    If  his  life 
— his  essence — is  evil,  that  evil  will  reappear  in  his  children ;  and  the  evil  of  any 
one  generation  is  the  accumulated  result  of  the  evils  of  preceding  generations. 
'  And  as  this  evil  was  gradually  acquired  and  accumulated,  so  it  must  be  grad- 
ually laid  off  before  he  can  ever  return  to  his  pristine  condition.    Man  must  im- 
prove through  successive  generations  ere  the  moral  image  of  God  can  be  fully  re- 
instamped  upon  him,  and  everlasting  thanks  are  due  to  His  goodness  that  provis- 
ion is  made  for  this  restoration,  and  that  He  has  purposed  to  effect  it.  Regener- 
ation is  the  appointed  means ;  and  in  regeneration  there  is  a  continued  infusion 
of  the  divine  principles  of  Love  and  Wisdom  which  elaborate  a  new  interior  life, 
and  this  by  degrees  works  itself  into  the  physical  man,  so  that  as  far  as  he  yields 
himself  to  its  influence  there  is  a  perpetual  transforming  and  ameliorating  process 
going  on  that  must  inevitably  show  itself  in  his  descendants  from  age  to  age. 
For  it  operates  by  a  fixed  law  of  life,  and  ten  thousand  volumes  of  a  contrary 
theology  can  never  countervail  a  settled  law  of  the  universe.    As  man  has  re- 
ceded from  the  immutable  order  established  by  the  Deity,  and  as  he  has  done 
this  in  the  exercise  of  his  moral  freedom,  so  he  must  retrace  his  steps  in  a  like 
voluntary  return. 

Now  I  would  beg  you  to  contrast  this  view  of  the  fall  and  the  rising  again — 
the  ruin  and  the  recovery  of  the  human  race — with  that  which  is  generally 
inculcated  in  all  Christian  schools.  Are  we  not  conscious  of  something  which 
taxes  our  rational  faculty  in  the  idea,  that  the  moral  destinies  of  the  race  were 
first,  by  a  federal  arrangement,  embodied  in  a  single  individual — that  he  was 
placed  in  a  garden  one  day  and  sinned  and  fell  the  next — and  that  too  by  the 
machinations  of  an  evil  spirit  in  the  form  of  a  serpent  of  whose  existence  he  had 
not  been  informed,  and  against  whose  arts  he  had  not  been  warned  !  I  speak 
"with  entire  confidence  in  expressing  the  conviction,  that  every  man  who  reflects 
calmly  is  conscious  of  a  difliculty  on  this  score— that  there  is  something  in  the 
promptings  of  every  one's  bosom  that  leads  him  to  ask,  whether  there  is  not 
some  Qfher  than  the  literal  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  terrestrial  evil 
Was  such  a  stupendous  event  as  tjie_fa.ll  of  man— involving  the  eternal  perdition 
of^  so  many  millions  of  human  beings— brought  about  so^suddenltj,  and  by  the  mor- 
al act  of  an  individual  in  the  very  infancy  of  his  existence — not  a  week  old — 
having  no  experience— and,  as  wc  .should  suppose,  very  little  competent  to  weigh 
the  amazing^ issues  that  depended  upon  his  conduct Who  would  not  gladly  find 
some  other  mode  of  explanation  for  this  mysterious  transaction  if  it  were  intrin- 


(^u^i  o-c 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


71 


sically  possible  ?  That  misgivings  do  arise  on  this  head  in  thousands  of  minds,  is 
beyond  all  question.  But  they  are  not  indulged — they  are  quickly  suppressed  by 
the  force  of  the  lessons  of  the  catechism  and  the  authority  of  the  dogma.  Preju- 1 ^ 
dice,  the  child  of  tradition,  reigns  every  where  so  rampan^that  the  man  of  thef 
church  tjembles  at  its  frown  and,  under  the  constant  teachings  that  Reason  is  for- 
ever to  be  held  subject  to  Faith,  he  tries  to  throw  his  doubts  to  the  winds, 
though,  like  a  projected  handful  of  feathers,  they  are  incessantly  blown  back  - 
upon  him. 

In  this  emergency  Swcdeuborg's  sublime  developments  come  in  and  speak 
peace  and  assurance  to  the  laboring  reason.  Seizing  hold  of  the  deep  inner  in- 
tuitions of  the  soul,  which  lie  embedded  below  the  superincumbent  strata  of  ed- 
ucational faith,''they  lift  them  up  into  the  light  of  rational  conviction  and  oracular 
assertion.  It  is  like  boring  an  Artesian  well  of  truth  down  to  the  nethermost 
depths  of  the  spirit,  through  which  the  confined  and  troubled  waters  gush  up 
to  the  surface,  flowing  forth  in  streams  and  expanding  into  lakes.  Such  a  view 
is  indeed  so  entirely  contrary  to  the  apparant  sense  of  the  letter,  and  to  the  theo- 
logical systems  built  upon  it,  that  it  must  necessarily  encounter  a  deadly  oppo- 
sition from  the  adherents  of  the  common  creeds.  But  Truth  is  armed  with  om- 
nipotence, and  it  will  gradually  work  its  way  to  universal  admission.  It  will 
then,  I  am  persuaded,  become  as  much  a  matter  of  wonder  that  these  first  chap- 
ters of  Genesis  were  regarded  as  a  veritable  piece  of  history,  as  it  now  is  that 
the  Etoleinaic  system  of  Astronomy  "should  ever  have  obtained  currency  as  a 
scientific  scheme  of  the  universe. 

It  would  be  easy  to  extend  this  view  of  Swedenborg's  interpretations,  and ' 
show  what  innumerable  difficulties  are  avoided  by  applying  the  principle  of  the 
spiritual  sense  to  settle  the  import  of  disputed  texts.  Especially  would  it  be 
gratifying  to  be  able  to  spread  before  you  his  expositions  of  the  24th  and  25th 
chapters  of  Matthew  and  other  prophecies  relative  to  the  end  of  the  World,  show- 
ing that  nothing  is  farther  from  the  scope  of  these  predictions  than  to  announce 
a  physical  destruction  of "  the  great  globe  which  we  inhabit,"  instead  of  which 
we  are  merely  to  read  in  them  the  passing  away  of  an  old  dispensation,  and  the 
ushering  in  of  a  new  one,  and  that  no  figmeut'of  fancy  was  ever  more  gross 
than  that  the  Saviour  is  to  appear  visibly  in  the  clouds  of  heaven  and  to  put  an  ■ 
end  to  the  mundane  system  by  a  general  conflagration. 

May  I,  then,  venture  to  consider  myself  as  having  developed,  in  some  good 
degree,  the  true  genius  of  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word  ?  If  I  have  at  all  succeed- 
ed in  this  according  to  my  hope,  you  will  scarcely  fail  to  have  perceived,  that 
this  feature  of  Swedenborg's  system  is  well  entitled  to  that  pre-eminence  which 
is  uniformly  assigned  to  it  by  his  adherents.  It  is  in  their  estimate  the  crown 
and  climax  of  his  revelations,  and  though  it  cannot  be  viewed  apart  from  the 
laws  and  phenomena  of  the  other  life,  yet  in  a  comparative  view  of  the  intrinsic 
importance  of  the  two  classes  of  disclosures  we  do  not  hesitate  to  give  the  palm 
to  this.  It  invests  the  hallowed  oracles  with  a  glory  like  that  which  pervaded 
the  Holy  of  Holies  when  the  curtain  was  lifted  and  the  eye  of  the  High  Priest 
gazed  upon  the  sacred  recess.  The  envelope  of  the  natural  sense  falls  off  and 
all  becomes  intellectual,  spiritual,  and  celestial. 

In  a  little  work  entitled  "  The  Record  of  Family  Instruction,"  the  Hon.  Mr.  Tulk, 
the  author,  after  remarking  upon  the  necessity  of  a  clear  and  correct  idea  of  the 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


spiritual  sense,  and  how  it  differs  from  the  literal,  lest  we  should  "  mistake  the  one 
for  the  other,  and  think  we  had  got  the  internal  meaning,  when  we  had  obtained 
nothing  more  than  a  refined  natural  sense,  by  an  ingenious  explanation  of  some 
eastern  allegory  or  metaphor" — goes  on  to  observe  ; — "  The  spiritual  sense  of  the 
Word  of  God  does  not  in  the  least  relate  to  any  event  or  circumstance  in  this 
natural  world ;  it  has  no  relation  whatever  to  the  condition  of  man  as  a  natural 
being,  nor  to  any  of  the  properties  which  belong  to  the  objects  of  our  senses. 
Seeing,  from  this  part  of  our  definition,  what  the  spiritual  sense  is  not,  if  we 
should  detect  anything  which  relates  to  the  personal  condition  of  man,  to  out- 
ward events,  or  to  any  of  the  properties  of  nature,  we  may  be  sure  that  we  have 
not  arrived  at  a  clear  conception  of  the  limits  of  the  two  senses,  but  have  been 
confounding  them  together.  The  spiritual  sense  is  exclusively  confined  to 
man's  spiritual  condition,  embracing  within  its  circuit  every  possible  state  of  the 
human  mind,  both  in  that  arrangement  and  subordination  of  its  powers  to  the 
Divine  Will  which  are  to  fit  man  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  in  that  disar- 
rangement and  insubordination  of  the  mind  by  the  love  of  evil,  which  are  the 
sure  and  only  sources  of  his  eternal  misery.  The  spiritual  sense  of  the  Holy 
Scripture  is  a  history  of  the  indefinitely  various  states  of  the  human  mind;  con- 
sisting of  a  series  of  truths,  universal,  as  all  truths  are  which  are  abstracted  from 
space  and  time,  and  therefore  applicable  to  all  mankind  in  all  ages  of  the  world. 
I^hese  conditions  of  the  mind,  that  is,  of  the  will  and  the  intellect,  are  called  the 
states  of  the  church,  or  of  the  kingdom  of  God  in  man.  Our  first  step  must  be  to 
have  it  well  impressed  upon  our  minds,  that  the  natural  sense  relates,  generally 
speaking,  to  the  ckcumstances,  conditions,  and  duties  of  man  externally,  or  in 
nature,  and  also  to  the  different  forms,  properties,  and  relations  which  belong  to 
the  objects  of  nature  ;  and  that  the  spiritual  sense  relates  to  the  various  states  of 
man's  spirit,  that  is,  of  his  will  in  the  quality  of  the  love  which  animates  it,  and 
of  his  intellect  in  the  quality  of  its  knowledge." — p.  2. 

It  would  doubtless  be  desirable,  in  this  connection,  to  adduce  an  array  of  pas- 
sages from  the  Arcana  illustrative  of  the  peculiar  genius  of  the  commentary — 
so  immensly  diverse  from  all  others— which  Swedenborg  affords  upon  the  books 
of  Genesis  and  Exodus^and  incidentally  upon  nearly  every  other  portion  of  the 
Word.  But  as  this  would  draw  too  largely  upon  my  space,  I  will  endeavor  to 
accomplish  the  object  by  a  different  method.  Taking  the  Index  to  that  work, 
and  turning  to  the  article  Truth,  which  alone  occupies  eleven  pages,  referring 
probably  to  upwards  of  one  thousand  sections,  I  will  extract  a  sufficient  portion 
of  it  to  give  you  some  idea  of  the  general  vein  of  exposition  which  distinguishes 
not  this  only,  but  every  part  of  tliat  amazing  store-house  of  spiritual  wisdom. 
And  I  would  especially  ask  your  attention  to  the  drift  of  the  discussions  indicated 
by  the  topical  heads  ia  connection  with  your  own  idea  of  Swedenborg's  state  as 
that  of  a  man  who  had  unfortunately  became  insane  upon  religious  subjects.  I 
have  no  small  curiosity  to  know  which  of  the  items  specified  you  would  fix  up- 
on as  savoring,  from  the  import,  of  the  hallucination  of  a  mind  deranged.  The 
figures  yon  will  of  course  understand  as  referring  to  the  paragraphs  of  the  Ar- 
cana. If  the  volumes  should  be  accessible,  and  you  should  be  disposed  to  turn 
to  some  of  the  passages  cited,  and  see  how  the  topics  are  treated,  I  think  I  may 
assure  you  of  finding  a  vast  increase  of  difficulty  attending  the  supposition,  that 
such  sentiments  should  have  emanated  from  an  unsettled  intellect. 


I 

( 

I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


73 


"  That  there  is  no  other  truth  but  what  is  from  jrood,  illustrated  by  examples, 
n.  2434.  That  good  cannot  flow-in  into  truth,  .so  long  as  man  is  in  evil,  n.  2388. 
That  trutli  appertaining  to  man  is  according  to  good,  in  like  ratio  and  degree,  n. 
2429.  That  the  same  truths  with  one  are  truths,  with  another  less  true,  and  with 
others  even  falscs,  n.  2439.  That  man  cannot  be  saved  by  the  truths  of  faith, 
but  by  the  goods  which  are  in  truths,  n.  2261.  That  there  is  an  afTection  of  good 
and  an  aflection  of  truth,  what  is  the  distinction,  n.  1967.  There  are  two  affec- 
tions of  good  and  of  truth,  and  that  the  ancients  instituted  a  marriage  between 
them,  n.  1904.  What  is  the  quality  of  those  Avho  are  in  the  aflection  of  good, 
and  of  those  who  are  in  the  affection  of  truth,  n.  2422,  2430.  That  there  is  an 
affection  of  rational  truth  and  of  scientihc  truth,  n.  2503.  That  good  divine 
flows-in  into  truths  of  every  kind,  l)ut  more  closely  into  genuine  truths,  n.  2531. 
That  good  divine  flows-in  into  appearances  and  into  fallacies,  n.  2554.  That  the 
truths  appertaining  to  man  are  appearances  imbued  with  fallacies,  also  with 
falses,  but  that  the  Lord  still  conjoins  himself  with  man,  and  forms  consciencein 
him,  n.  2053.  That  conjunction  is  reciprocal,  viz.  of  the  Lord  with  man,  and  of 
man  with  the  Lord,  n.  2004.  That  things  rational  are  appearances  of  truth,  n. 
2519.  What  the  quality  of  an  idea  of  truth  without  good  is,  and  what  the  qual- 
ity of  its  light  in  the  other  life,  n.  2428.  That  rational  truth  without  good  is  mo- 
rose, n.  1949,  1950,  1951,  1964;  but  when  derived  from  good,  what  its  quality  is, 
11.  1950.  That  truths  derived  from  good  are  arranged  according  to  affinities  in 
heaven,  n.  1900,  1928.  That  there  is  truth  intellectual,  rational,  and  scientific, 
concerning  which,  n.  1904.  What  celestial  truth  is,  and  what  spiritual  truth  is, 
that  the  former  flows-in  with  the  celestial  man,  the  latter  with  the  spiritual  man, 
n.  2069.  Who  are  capable  of  coining  into  the  knowledges  and  faith  of  truth,  and 
who  are  not  capable,  n.  2689.  That  a  distinct  idea  between  good  and  truth  has  not 
been  formed,  n.  2507.  That  the  Lord  made  himself  good  itself  and  truth  itself,  n. 
2011.  That  all  good  and  truth  is  from  the  Lord,  n.  2016.  That  divine  good  ele- 
vates all  to  heaven,  but  truth  damns  all  to  hell,  n.  2258,  2335.  That  man  ought 
to  compel  himself  to  think  what  is  true,  and  to  do  what  is  good,  n.  1937,  1938. 
That  rational  truth  cannot  perceive  divine  truth,  exemplified,  n.  2196,  2203,2209. 
That  the  first-formed  rational  principle,  because  it  does  not  comprehend,  makes 
light  of  intellectual  truth,  exemplified,  n.  1911,  1936,  2654.  What  it  is  to  be 
judged  from  good,  and  what  from  truth,  n.  2335.  That  things  rational  and  scien- 
tific are  like  a  body  and  clothing  to  things  spiritual,  n.  2576.  That  man  ought  to  do 
good  and  to  think  truth  as  from  himself,  that  lie  may  receive  a  celestial  proprium 
and  celestial  freedom,  n.  2282,  2883,  2891.  That  all  good  and  truth  is  from  the 
Lord,  and  that  so  far  as  man  believes  that  it  is  from  him,  so  far  he  is  in  his  king- 
dom, n.  2904.  That  the  first  state  of  those  who  are  regenerating  is,  that  they 
suppose  good  and  truth  to  be  from  themselves,  and  they  are  left  in  that  opinion 
for  reasons  treated  of;  but  when  they  are  regenerated,  they  believe  that  good 
and  truth  are  from  the  Lord,  and  at  length  they  perceive  it,n.  2946, 2960, 2974." — 
Index  to  A.  C. 

These  references,  I  think,  must  strike  you  as  indicating  a  calm  and  orderly 
mode  of  discussion,  and  the  several  theses  constituting  the  topics  such  as  in  any 
other  case  would  be  consistent  with  the  utmost  soundness  and  sobriety  of  mind. 
They  will,  at  any  rate,  appear,  if  I  mistake  not,  in  very  marked  contrast  with  the 
rhodomontade  you  have  served  up  in  the  letters  from  the  Worcester  lunatic  as 
containing,  m  their  measure,  a  parallel  to  the  revelations  of  Swedenborg  respecting 
spirits  and  angels.  And  permit  me  here  to  remark,  that  it  will  scarcely  avail 
to  say,  that  you  had  in  your  eye,  in  the  comparison,  the  disclosure.^  instead  of  the 
doctrines,  for  the  doctrines  themselves  are  inseparably  interwoven  with  the  tissue 
of  the  developments  made  in  relation  to  the  spiritual  world.  The  arcana  of  the 
Word  and  the  arcana  of  heaven  and  hell  must  stand  or  fall  together.  Sweden- 
borg could  never  have  written  the  commentary  he  has  if  he  had  not  been,  in  spi- 
rit, within  the  veil,  and  seen  the  hidden  verities  of  that  inner  world. 

Still  I  cannot  but  be  conscious  that  even  the  above  exhibition  will  fail  to  do 

OC^'tU-^J-  e^^^^ty  erv    ^''<k,i.>^-iC^^  y^^ec-^^'^Js^,^^ 


74 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


full  justice  to  the  manner  in  which  he  inteUectualises  nnd  spiritualises  the  plamest 
historical  details,  and  that  too,  not  in  accordance  with  the  impulses  of  a  vagari- 
ous fancy,  but  with  the  teachings  of  an  invariable  law — invariable  to  his  percep- 
tions, though  not  always,  I  admit,  to  ours.  We  may  be  unable  in  all  cases  to  per- 
ceive precisely  how  certain  moral  instructions  flow  directly  from  the  passages 
from  which  he  elicits  them,  but  we  can  usually  perceive  the  intrinsic  truth  and 
weightiness  of  the  lessons  in  themselves  considered.  Thus,  for  instance,  in  re- 
spect to  a  single  item  noted  above — that,  "  rational  truth  without  good  is  morose" 
— it  may  be  well  to  adduce  a  few  sentences  to  illustrate  the  manner  in  which  he 
treats  the  subject  and  which  may  serve  also  as  a  specimen  of  his  general  man- 
ner.   He  is  speaking  of  Islimael. 

"  The  wild-ass  is  a  mule  of  the  wilderness,  or  an  ass  of  the  forest;  and  it  sig- 
nifies the  rational  of  man,  not  the  rational  in  its  complex,  but  only  rational  truth. 
The  rational  consists  of  good  and  of  truth,  that  is,  of  those  things  which  are  of 
charity,  and  of  those  things  which  are  of  faith  :  rational  truth  is  that  which  is  sig- 
nified by  the  wild-ass.  This  then  is  what  is  represented  by  Ishmael,  and  is  des- 
cribed in  this  verse.  No  one  can  believe  that  rational  truth  separate  from  rational 
good  is  such,  nor  should  I  have  known  it  to  be  such,  unless  instructed  by  lively 
experience.  It  is  the  same  thing  whether  we  speak  of  rational  truth,  or  of  a 
man  whose  rational  is  of  such  a  nature :  a  man,  whose  rational  is  such  that  he 
is  only  in  truth,  although  in  the  truth  of  faith  and  not  at  the  same  time  in  the 
good  of  charity,  is  altogether  of  this  character :  he  is  morose,  impatient,  opposite 
to  all  others,  viewing  every  one  as  in  the  false,  instantly  rebuking,  chastising, 
and  punishing :  he  is  without  pity,  neither  does  he  apply  himself  and  endeavor 
to  bend  the  minds  of  others :  for  he  regards  everything  from  truth,  and  nothing 
from  good.  Every  genuine  rational  consists  of  good  and  truth,  that  is,  of  the 
celestial  and  spiritual :  good,  or  the  celestial,  is  its  very  soul  or  life  :  truth,  or  the 
spiritual,  is  what  thence  receives  its  life.  The  rational  without  life  from  celes- 
tial good,  is  as  is  here  described,  viz.,  it  fights  against  all,  and  all  fight  against  it. 
Rational  good  never  fights,  howsoever  it  is  assaulted,  because  it  is  meek  and 
gentle,  patient  and  yielding,  for  it  is  of  love  and  mercy  :  and  although  it  does  not 
fight,  yet  it  conquers  all,  never  thinking  of  combat,  or  boasting  of  victory  :  and 
this  because  it  is  divine,  and  is  safe  of  itself  For  no  evil  can  assault  good,  nor 
even  subsist  in  tlie  sphere  where  good  is :  if  it  only  feels  its  approximation  it 
recedes  of  itself  and  retires :  for  evil  is  infernal,  and  good  is  celestial." — A.  C. 
1949,  1950. 

Again  in  spealcing  in  another  place  of  the  essential  life  of  truth  he  says : — 

"  In  order  to  constitute  a  truth,  there  must  be  life  in  it,  for  truth  without  life  is 
not  the  truth  of  faith  appertaining  to  man,  and  life  is  from  no  other  source  than 
from  good,  that  is,  by  [or  through]  good  from  the  Lord;  if  therefore  the  Lord  be 
not  in  a  truth,  it  is  a  trnth  without  life,  thus  not  true ;  but  if  the  false  be  in  it,  or 
evil,  the  truth  itself  appertaining  to  man  is  false  or  evil;  for  what  is  within,  this 
constitutes  the  essence,  and  also  in  the  other  life  is  translucent  through  what  is 
external.  From  these  considerations  now  it  may  be  manifest  how  it  is  to  be 
understood,  that  truths  ought  not  to  be  thought  of  from  any  other  source  than 
from  the  Lord.  Inasmuch  as  few  know  how  the  case  is  with  trutiis  which  in 
the  internal  form  are  truths,  thus  which  live  from  the  Lord,  it  may  be  expedient 
to  say  something  on  the  subject  from  experience  :  in  the  other  life  it  is  manifestly 
perceived  by  every  one  who  speaks  there,  what  is  inwardly  stored  up  in  the 
words  of  his  speech,  as  whether  it  be  closed  within,  or  whether  it  be  open,  also 
what  kind  of  affection  is  in  it;  if  the  affection  of  good  be  in  it,  it  is  inwardly  soft, 
if  the  affection  of  evil,  it  is  inwardly  hard,  and  so  forth.  With  the  angels  of  hea- 
ven, all  things  of  their  discourse  are  open  even  to  the  Lord,  which  is  both  clearly 
perceived  and  is  also  heard  from  its  softness  and  the  quality  thereof;  hence  also 
it  is  known  what  lies  stored  up  within  in  truths,  whether  the  Lord  or  not ;  the 
truths  in  which  the  Lord  is,  are  truths  which  are  alive,  but  the  truths  in  which 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


75 


the  Lord  is  not,  arc  truths  which  are  not  alive ;  those  which  are  alive  are  the 
truths  of  faith  grounded  in  love  to  the  Lord,  and  iu  charity  towards  the  neigh- 
bor; those  which  are  not  alive  are  not  truths,  because  inwardly  iu  them  is 
self-love  and  the  love  of  the  world.  Spirits  and  angels  in  the  other  life  may 
hereby  be  discerned,  for  every  one  hath  truths  according  to  his  life,  that  is,  ac- 
cording to  what  universally  reigns  with  iiim." — A.  C.  88C8. 

Now  iu  respect  to  the  first  of  these  extracts,  I  readily  grant  that  it  is  not  easily 
apprehensible  whtj  Ishmael  as  a  wild  ass  should  convey  to  a  spiritual  perception] 
the  idea  ol  rational  truth,  although  if  you  consult  the  whole  section  you  Avill  see 
that  he  cites  a  number  of  passages  in  which  the  term  "  wild  ass"  must  have  some< 
other  than  the  literal  sense,  or  it  makes  nonsense.  But  no  one,  I  think,  will  refuse 
to  admit  that  the  sentiment  educed  is  one  intrinsically  of  great  practical  moment 
and  every  way  worthy  of  the  source  from  which  he  professes  to  derive  it ;  nor  do 
I  see  how  any  one  can  help  acknowledging,  that  provided  such  senses  can  be  le- 
gitimately drawn  from  the  historical  portions  of  the  Word  it  becomes  indeed  a 
treasury  of  divine  wisdom  of  which  he  had  before  but  a  very  faint  conception. 

Now  on  this  head  his  espousers,  one  and  all,  profess  to  be  eniirely  satisfied, 
and  that  too  for  the  most  adequate  reasons.  As  a  supernatural  illumination  is  plain- 
ly requisite  to  authenticate  such  recondite  senses  of  the  Word,  so  the  illumina- 
tion needs  to  be  equally  authenticated  by  its  appropriate  evidences.  This  they 
are  assured  has  been  amply  done,  though  I  am  not  at  present  engaged  in  dilat- 
ing upon  the  various  grounds  on  which  their  conviction  rests.  But  they  are  fully 
persuaded  upon  what  is,  to  them,  abundant  evidence,  that  the  requisite  illumi- 
nation has  been  imparted  to  Swedenborg  for  the  express  purpose  of  solving  the 
enigmas  of  the  Word,  and  that  too  by  restoring  the  lost  science  of  Correspondences. 
This  science  was  undoubtedly  well  known  in  the  most  ancient  eras  of  the 
Church,  and  the  Hieroglyphics  of  Egypt  and  the  East  are  the  obscure  vestiges  of 
a  grand  system  of  the  interpretation  of  Nature,  which  universally  prevailed  in 
the  first  ages.  Even  the  present  figurative  style  of  Asiatic  hterature  owes  its  ori- 
gin to  the  same  source.  But  as  man  degenerated  from  the  purity  and  lucidity  oJ^ 
his  primeval  state,  he  gradually  lost  his  perception  of  the  spiritual  causes  of  nat-^ 
ural  things,  and  from  worshiping  the  divine  things  signified  by  the  visible  signs, 
he  began  to  worship  the  signs  themselves,  and  thus  opened  the  flood-gates  of 
idolatry  upon  the  world.  As  idolatry  came  in,  the  knowledge  of  corresponden- , 
ces  went  out,  and  the  science  was  in  abeyance  till  Swedenborg  arose  and  be- 
came the  instrument  of  restoring  it  again  to  men.  For  this  end  his  interior  senses 
were  opened — he  was  elevated  into  the  spiritual  sphere,  the  sphere  of  causes — 
and  thence  was  enabled  to  reveal  the  hidden  purport  of  the  names  of  all  the  nat- 
ural objects  mentioned  in  the  Word,  and  through  which  its  spiritual  truths  are 
conveyed.  We  receive  the  expositions  which  he  has  given,  even  where  we  are 
unable  clearly  to  perceive  their  intrinsic  aptitude  to  express  the  ideas  intended, 
because  we  believe  he  has  aS"orded  suffiicient  evidence  of  his  illumination. 

You  will  see  from  this,  without  farther  explanation,  the  manner  in  which  we 
should  of  course  entertain  the  suggestions  made  in  the  following  paragraph  from 
your  work. 

"  Now  suppose  I  should  admit  the  truth  of  what  are  considered  the  essential 
psychological  or  spiritual  principles  of  ihe  system;  how  would  it  follow  from 
these  principles,  that  in  the  six  chapters  preceding  the  13th  of  Genesis,  the  names 
are  not  names  of  persons,  but  of  churches,  and  that  the  years  mentioned  do  not 


76 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


denote  periods  of  time,  but  states  and  circumstances  of  those  ante-dilnvian 
churches,  and  the  whole  account  there  given  of  the  successive  generations  of 
men,  and  of  the  events  which  took  place  before  the  deluge  and  at  the  time  of 
the  deluge,  instead  of  being  what  it  professes  to  be,  an  account  of  historical  ve- 
rities, is  a  mere  allegory,  intended,  like  Bunyan's  story  of  the  Pilgrim,  to  convey 
a  moral  or  spiritual  sense  Swedenborg  himself  teaches,  that  these  and  many 
other  things  contained  in  his  writings,  could  never  have  been  known,  had  iiot 
the  Lord  opened  his  interior  sight,  and  enabled  him  to  see  and  know  things 
which  were  utterly  beyond  the  discovery  of  the  human  mind  without  supernat- 
ural illumination.  And  as  Swedenborg  never  thought,  that  a  supernatural  sight 
would  be  the  common  privilege  of  the  generations  which  would  follow  him,  he 
must  have  exj^ected  that  they  would  receive  his  disclosures  on  the  ground  of 
his  authority.  According  to  the  spirit  of  his  own  repeated  declarations,  there 
was  no  other  way  for  men  to  know  the  things  which  he  revealed,  but  by  avail- 
~Hng  themselves  of  his  supernatural  illumuiation,  and  relying  implicitly  on  his  au- 
thority."—p.  49. 

'  We  are  not  alarmed  by  the  apparent  dilemma  in  which  you  appear  to  consider 
us  entangled.  It  is  to  us  very  much  the  same  as  information  from  Egypt  or 
China  is  to  you.  Although  you  never  visited  either  of  these  countries,  yet  you 
Ido  not  hesitate  to  receiv^e  the  testimony  of  travellers  respecting  them,  provided 
)you  have  satisfied  yourself  as  to  their  claims  to  credence.  You  would  be  far  from 
insisting  that  they  should  give  you  internal  evidence  of  the  truth  of  every  item 
of  their  reports  concerning  the  laws,  arts,  manners,  language,  institutions,  and 
monuments  of  the  people.  In  the  case  of  Swedenborg's  interpretations,  how- 
ever, we  do  not  regard  ourselves  as  cut  ofi  entirely  from  internal  evidence.  A 
very  considerable  portion  of  them  are  of  such  a  nature  that,  as  soon  as  the  fun- 
damental principle  is  announced,  they  at  once  approve  themselves  to  our  rea- 
son as  true.  This  naturally  lays  a  foundation  for  confidence  in  his  testimony  on 
points  that  are  not  at  present  intellectually  seen  to  be  true,  but  which  are  at  the 
same  time  in  accordance  with,  or  the  result  of,  principles  and  facts  about  which 
the  mind  feels  itself  assured. 

I  deem  it,  however,  no  more  than  fair  to  acknowledge  that  precisely  here  is 
the  point  where  the  largest  draft  is  made  upon  our  assent — the  point  of  nearest 
approach  to  what  might  be  termed  an  implicit  reliance  on  his  averments.  la 
all  that  he  has  taught  of  the  state  and  condition  of  departed  souls— of  the  facts 
and  phenomena  of  the  world  unseen — we  perceive  a  certain  ground  of  intrmsic 
probability  and  such  a  difliculty  of  conceiving  otherwise,  that  we  can  scarcely  be 
said  to  take  it  wholly  upon  trust.  When  once  the  clew  is  given  us  by  his  al- 
leged disclosures,  the  deductions  of  our  reason  seem  to  bring  us  inevitably  to 
the  same  results.  But  when  we  come  to  the  biblical  interpretations,  we  feel,  in 
regard  to  many  of  them,  more  like  one  who  is  led  by  the  hand  in  the  dark, 
though  we  still  find  it  easy  to  justify  to  ourselves  the  most  unbounded  confidence 
in  our  guide.  Even  he  himself  has  taught  us  to  believe  that  the  recognition  of 
his  truth  depends  very  much  on  the  development  of  the  spiritual  nature— the 
moral  element— within  us,  which  stands  in  the  most  intimate  relation  with  the 
spiritual  sense.  This  interior  perception  does  not  come,  in  our  opinion,  so 
properly  within  the  domain  of  the  purely  rational  faculty,  however  highly  cul- 
tivated. As  Truth  is  evermore  truly  seen  from  Good,  so  a  heavenly  Life  is  the 
grand  requisite  to  deep  spiritual  insight.  Such  an  instinctive  perception  as  1  am 
now  speaking  of  we  believe  was  enjoyed  by  the  Most  Ancient  Church— whose 
wisdom  really  excelled  ours  in  proportion  as  they  were  more  in  the  good  of 


J 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


77 


life— and  that  it  will  be  again  enjoyed  at  a  future  day,  when  the  church  shall  be 
restored  to  its  primeval  purity  and  clearness  of  vision.  There  will  then,  we 
think,  be  little  difficulty  in  apprehending  the  soundness  of  Swedenborg's  most 
recondite  interpretations.  What  might  we  not  anticipate  on  this  score  from  a 
general  state  of  the  inner  man  even  approximating  to  that  wliich  is  described  in 
the  following  extract. 

"  There  was  to  the  man  of  the  Most  Ancient  Church  no  other  worship  than 
interna],  .such  as  there  is  in  heaven,  for  with  them  heaven  communicated  with 
man,  so  that  they  made  a  one ;  that  communication  was  perception,  concerning 
which  much  has  been  said  above:  thus  being  angelic  men,  they  were  also  in- 
ternal men  ;  they  perceived  indeed,  by  sensation,  the  external  things  relating  to 
the  body  and  the  world,  but  they  cared  not  for  them:  in  every  object  of  sense 
they  perceived  somewhat  divine  and  celestial ;  as  for  example,  when  they  saw 
any  high  mountain,  they  did  not  perceive  the  idea  of  a  mountain,  but  of  height, 
and  from  height  they  had  a  perception  of  heaven  and  the  Lord ;  hence  it  came  ' 
to  pass  that  the  Lord  was  said  to  dwell  on  high,  and  He  Himself  was  called  the 
Highest  and  Most  Exalted,  and  afterwards  the  worship  of  the  Lord  was  solemn- 
ized on  mountains:  the  case  was  similar  in  other  instances;  as  when  they  per-^ 
ceived  the  morning,  they  did  not  perceive  the  morning  itself  of  tire  day,  but  the> 
celestial,  which  is  like  the  morning  and  day-dawn  in  the  mind  ;  hence  the  Lord 
was  called  the  Morning,  the  East,  and  the  Dawn :  in  like  manner  when  they 
saw  a  tree,  with  its  fruits  and  leaves,  they  did  not  attend  to  them,  but  saw  as  it 
were  man  represented  therein,  in  the  fruit  love  and  charity,  in  the  leaves  faith ; 
hence  also  the  man  of  the  church  was  not  only  compared  to  a  tree,  and  likewise 
to  a  paradise,  and  the  things  in  man  to  fruit  and  leaves,  but  they  were  also  so 
called.    Such  are  they  who  are  in  a  celestial  and  angelic  idea.    Every  one  may' 
apprehend  that  the  general  idea  rules  all  the  particulars,  thus  all  the  objects  of 
the  senses,  as  well  what  is  seen  as  what  is  heard,  and  indeed  in  such  a  manner, 
that  the  objects  are  not  at  all  cared  for,  but  so  far  as  they  flow  into  the  general 
idea;  thus  to  him  who  is  joyful  in  mind,  whatever  is  heard  or  seen  appears  joy- 
ful and  smiling;  but  if  the  mind  be  aflected  with  sorrow,  whatever  is  heard  or 
seen  appears  sad  and  sorrowful ;  so  in  all  other  cases  ;  for  the  general  affection 
is  in  particulars,  and  causes  them  to  be  seen  and  heard  in  the  general  affection ; 
other  things  do  not  even  appear,  but  are  as  if  they  were  absent,  or  as  nothing. 
This  was  the  case  with  the  man  of  the  Most  Ancient  Church ;  whatever  he  saw 
with  his  eyes  was  to  him  celestial ;  and  thus  with  him  all  things  and  each,  were 
as  if  they  were  alive.    Hence  may  appear  what  was  the  nature  and  quality  of 
his  divine  worship,  that  it  was  internal,  and  in  no  respect  e.vtenial.    But  when 
the  Church  declined,  as  it  did  with  the  posterity,  and  when  that  perception  or 
communication  with  heaven  began  to  perish,  then  the  case  began  to  be  other- 
wise :  in  sensible  objects  men  no  longer  perceived  what  was  celestial,  as  be- 
fore, but  what  was  worldly,  and  this  in  a  greater  degree,  as  they  had  less  of  per- 
ception remaining;  till  at  length,  in  the  last  posterity,  which  was  next  before 
the  flood,  they  apprehended  nothing  in  sensible  objects  but  what  was  worldly, 
corporeal,  and  terrestrial; — thus  heaven  was  separated  from  man,  and  he  hsid 
none  but  very  remote  communication  therewith." — A.  C.  920. 

We  can  hardly  resist  the  inference,  from  the  general  tenor  of  Swedenborg's 
teachings,  that  there  is  a  knowledge  of  nature  intuitive  to  a  right  state  of  the  mo- 
ral affections  far  superior  to  that  achieved  by  the  science  of  the  intellect.-f-In  this 
fact  we  have  doubtless  the  trr.e  key  to  the  problem  found  in  the  character  of 
some  of  the  philosophies  which  we  term  ancient.  It  has  often  been  a  question 
with  the  learned  how  Plato  and  Pythagoras,  for  instance,  should  have  stumbled 
upon  so  much  truth.  But  suppose,  for  a  moment,  that  their  systems  were  but 
the  fragmentary  relics  of  a  still  more  ancient  wisdom,  which  flowed,  as  it  were, 
spontaneou.sly  from  a  higher  state  of  the  moral  man,  and  the  enigma  is  solved. 
Thisjyvisdom  was,  in  fact,  the  wisdom  of  correspondence,  or  of  tho  relation  of  the 


78 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


> natural  to  the  sjnritual  world.  The  pride  of  modern  science  may  be  humihated 
by  the  intimation,  but  the  acknowledgment  of  the  fact  is  merely  putting  its  due 
honor  upon  the  princijiles  of  Goodness  in  comparison  with  mere  Intellect.  We 
have  reversed  the  true  order,  and  the  effect  has  been  to  blind  us  to  the  realit}''  of 
the  perversion.    But  this  is  a  vein  of  thought  which  I  cannot  now  pursue. 

With  one  who  has  fully  acquainted  himself  with  Swedenborg"s  multifarious 
developements,  the  evidence  of  truth  is  so  imperative  ua  regard  to  an  immense 
x'ariety  of  points  which  his  reason  and  his  consciousness  are  able  to  certify,  that 
he  is  content  to  receive  other  matters  on  the  strength  of  a  veracity  which  has 
never  failed  him,  .so  far  as  he  had  the  means  of  putting  it  to  the  test.  He  rests  in 
the  inward  assurance  that  the  same  reasons  which  prevailed  with  the  Most  High 
for  granting  him  admission  into  the  spiritual  world  at  all,  required  also  that  what- 
ever he  reported  thence  should  be  entitled  to  the  most  absolute  reliance. 

No  persons,  however,  can  be  more  deeply  sensible  than  the  members  of 
the  New  Church,  how  much  is  involved  m  the  admission  of  this  high  claim 
on  the  part  of  their  revered  teacher.  The  very  fact,  indeed,  that  it  con- 
cedes so  much  to  a  human  being  in  this  age  of  the  world,  shoAvs  how  powerful 
and  prevailhig  has  been  the  evidence  that  has  convinced  them.  They  will 
doubtless  be  ready,  one  and  all,  to  say,  that  they  were,  at  the  outset — on  the  first 
annunciation  of  his  doctrines — as  much  starded  by  them,  perhaps  as  much  op- 
posed to  them,  as  any  one  who  now  rejects  them  with  no  more  knowledge  of 
their  peculiar  character  than  they  then  possessed.  But  they  read  and  pondered. 
They  were  struck,  they  were  surprised,  they  were  amazed,  at  the  coincidence 
between  his  revelations  and  their  own  inner  intuitions.  Especially  were  they 
wrought  upon  by  the  searching  and  penetrating  power  of  his  expose  of  the  deep- 
est principles  of  their  nature.  They  found  themselves  strangely  sifted  and  ex- 
plored— their  most  hidden  promptings  and  purposes  laid  open — the  nicest  con- 
ceivable distinctions  drawn  in  regard  to  those  mental  and  moral  elements  which 
are  the  spring  of  actions — as  if  every  form  and  phase  of  character  became  trans- 
parent under  his  luminous  development.  Most  deeply,  moreover,  were  they 
impressed  to  find  that  notwithstanding  his  assertion  of  a  supernatural  insight 
into  the  truth  of  things,  both  in  this  world  and  tlie  next,  he  still  makes  his  ap- 
peal to  the  tribunal  of  reason,  and  protests  with  all  earnestness  against  his  read- 
er's receiving  anything  for  truth  of  which  he  does  not  see  a  rational  evidence. 
The  more  they  penetrated  into  the  depths  of  his  doctrines,  the  more  were  they 
astonished  to  find  their  visionary  character  disappear,  and  the  strangest  disclo- 
sures to  assume  the  air  of  the  soundest  reason.  Proceeding  onward  to  a  more 
accurate  study  of  the  genius  and  endowments  of  the  man,  they  were  smitten 
with  wonder  at  the  gigantic  grasp  of  his  intellect,  capacious  at  once  of  the  vast 
and  the  minute— at  tlie  universality  of  his  scientific  attainments — at  the  unrivalled 
logical  precision  of  his  reasoning — at  the  symmetry  of  his  method — at  the  sim- 
plicity, clearness,  and  condensation  of  his  style — and  at  the  exuberant  richness 
of  illustration  ;  which  tiirows  a  glow  over  his  argument  witliout  weakening  its 
force  or  diverting  atteution  from  its  scope.  The  more,  in  fact,  they  have  learned 
of  the  intellectual  and  moral  attributes  of  the  great  apostle  of  the  New  Dispen- 
sation, the  more  deeply  grounded  is  their  conviction  of  his  pre  eminent  qualifi- 
cations for  the  high  oflice  he  was  called  to  sustain,  so  that  they  are  ready  at  once 
to  pronounce  it  as  their  calm  and  intelligeni  assurance,  that  were  his  various  en- 


"  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  79 

dowments  known  as  they  know  them,  they  would  be  appreciated  as  they  appre- ' 
ciate  them,  and  that  if  it  had  been  left  to  the  choice  of  the  collective  humanity  ^     ^  _ 
of  the  race  to  select  from  their  number  an  individual  who  should  be  made  the  \  ^ 
medium  and  depositery  of  these  stupendous  revelations  for  the  benefit  of  his  kind, 
the  election  would  have  fallen  without  a  dissenting  voice,  upon  the  very  man  ^ 
whom  the  Divine  Providence  actually  set  apart  for  the  purpose.    Nothing  is  ^  r 
more  evident  to  a  close  survey  of  his  personal  history,  than  that  his  whole  life,  r 
prior  to  his  illumination,  was  a  continued  course  of  unconscious  preparation  for  ^  ^ 
the  work  which  he  was  destined  to  perform,  nor  is  it  easy  to  conceive  of  a  hu-  >*  \^ 
man  beuig  more  thoroughly  accomplished  for  a  function  so  sacred  and  grand.  ' 
On  the  score  of  transcendant  intellect  and  the  highest  moral  worth,  everything  is  ^ 
as  it  should  be  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  case.  ^ 

I  have  adverted  to  these  considerations  with  a  view  to  justify  the  unlimited   "  y 
confidence  reposed  by  the  adherents  of  the  New  Church  in  the  spiritual  interpret-  ^ 
ations  given  by  Swedenborg  to  the  Word.    They  have  the  most  undoubting  as- 
surance that  this  sense  builds  itself  on  the  constitutional  structure  of  the  human  " 
mind  as  related  to  the  very  laws  of  creation,  and  which  finds  its  full  manifesta-     ,  ^  - 
tion  in  the  s^jiritual  world.    That  he  was  actually  intromitted  into  that  world,  ^ 
and  has  made  a  truthful  report  of  its  phenomena,  they  have  not  the  slightest    -  ~ 
question;  because  as  far  as  his  statements  cajibe  verified  to  consciousness  and   .  _  r- 
reason,  they  are  verified,  and  why  should  they  hesitate  to  receive  his  testimony  Ij.^ 
when  experience  fails  ?  Even  that  measure  of  truth  which  we  are  able  to  au-  *\' 
thenticate  by  our  own  inductions  depends  upon  moral  conditions  in  the  medium  ^ 
which,  in  our  view,  are  wholly  inconsistent  with  the  idea  of  anything  apocry- 
phal  in  the  remaining  departments  of  his  revelations. 

But  before  entirely  dismissing  the  present  subject  I  would  advert  for  a  few  p 
moments,  to  an  objection  Avhich  may  be,  and  has  been,  urged  against  the  doc- 
trine  of  the  spiritual  sense  on  the  ground  of  the  cmboiwf  Why,  it  is  asked,  if  the 
literal  sense  is  capable  of  beuig  translated,  as  it  is  by  Swedenborg,  into  sphitual 
language — why  was  not  that  language  originally  adopted  for  the  purpose Was 
it  not  as  easy  for  the  Spirit  who  dictated  the  Scriptures  to  have  couched  his  rev- 
elations, in  the  first  instance,  in  that  form  of  expression  into  which  the  actual 
form  must  be  rendered  before  it  can  be  adequately  understood.'  This  would 
doubtless  seem,  at  first  blush,  a  weighty  objection,  but  it  is  fully  answered  on 
the  ground  of  the  principles  on  which  the  whole  theory  rests. 

"  Truth  Divine  is  not  received  by  any  one,  unless  it  be  accommodated  to  the 
apprehension,  consequently  unless  it  appear  in  a  natural  form  and  species; 
for  human  minds  at  first  apprehend  none  but  terrestrial  and  worldly  things,  and 
not  at  all  spiritual  and  celestial  things,  wherefore  if  spiritual  and  celestial  things 
were  exposed  nakedly,  they  would  be  rejected  as  if  they  were  nothing,  accord- 
ing to  the  Lord's  words  in  John, '  If  I  have  told  you  earthly  things  and  ye  be- 
lieve not,  how  should  ye  believe  if  I  should  tell  you  super-celestial  things,'  iii. 
12;  this  was  particularly  the  case  with  those  who  lived  before  the  coming  of 
the  Lord,  who  at  length  were  in  such  blindness,  that  they  knew  nothing,  be- 
cause they  were  not  willing  to  know  anything  concerning  the  life  after  death, 
concerning  the  internal  man,  concerning  charity  and  faith,  and  concerning  any- 
thing celestial,  which  things  they  rejected,  because  they  held  them  in  aversion  ;  ' 
for  they  who  regard  terrestrial  and  worldly  things  as  an  end,  that  is,  Avho  love 
them  above  all  things,  hold  spiritual  things  in  aversion,  and  almost  abhor  the 
very  name  of  them ;  the  case  is  nearly  the  same  at  this  day ;  the  learned  of  the 
world  indeed  believe,  that  they  should  receive  the  Word  more  favorably,  if  ce- 


I' 


80 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


lestial  things  were  exposed  nakedly,  and  if  it  was  not  written  with  such  sim- 
pUcity  ;  but  they  are  very  much  deceived,  for  in  such  case  they  would  have  re- 
jected it  more  than  the  simple,  and  would  have  seen  in  it  no  light,  but  mere  gross 
darkness;  for  human  learning  induces  this  darkness  with  those  who  trust  to 
their  own  intelligence,  and  on  that  account  extol  themselves  above  others." — A. 
C.  8783. 

He  elsewhere  teaches,  with  great  explicitness,  that  the  literal  sense  is  the  ba- 
sis, continent,  and  support  of  the  spiritual  sense,  and  that  as  the  connection  of 
the  two  is  by  correspondences,  and  correspondences  are  the  medium  of  con- 
junction between  heaven  and  earth,*  if  the  literal  sense  were  wanting, 

— "  The  Word  would  be  like  a  palace  without  a  foundation  ;  that  is,  like  a 
palace  in  the  air  and  not  on  the  ground,  which  cotild  only  be  the  shadow  of  a 
palace,  and  must  vanish  away,  also,  that  the  Word,  without  its  literal  sense, 
would  be  like  a  temple  in  which  are  many  holy  things,  and  in  the  midst  thereof 
the  holy  of  holies,  without  a  roof  and  walls  to  form  the  continents  thereof;  m 
which  case  its  holy  things  would  be  plundered  by  theives,  or  be  violated  by  the 
beasts  of  the  earth  and  the  birds  of  heaven,  and  thus  be  dissipated.  In  the  same 
manner,  it  would  be  like  the  tabernacle,  in  the  inmost  place  whereof  was  the 
ark  of  the  covenant,  and  in  the  middle  part  the  golden  candlestick,  the  golden 
altar  for  incense,  and  also  the  table  for  shew-bread,  which  were  its  holy  things, 
without  its  ultimates,  which  were  the  curtains  and  vails.  Yea,  the  Word  with- 
out its  literal  sense  would  be  like  the  human  body  without  its  coverings,  which 
are  called  skins,  and  without  its  supporters,  which  are  called  bones,  of  which, 
supposing  it  to  be  deprived,  its  inner  parts  must  of  necessity  be  dispersed  and 
perish.  It  would  also  be  like  the  heart  and  the  lungs  in  the  thorax,  deprived  of 
their  covering,  which  is  called  the  pleura,  and  their  supporters,  which  are  called 
the  ribs;  or  like  the  brain  without  its  coverings,  which  are  called  the  r/itra  and 
pia  mater,  and  without  its  common  covering,  continent  and  firmament,  which  is 
called  the  skull.  Such  would  be  the  state  of  the  Word  without  its  literal  sense; 
wherefore  it  is  said  in  Isaiah,  that  '  the  Lord  will  create  upon  all  tlie  glory  a 
covering'  (iv.  5)."—D.  S.  S.  33. 

I  give  another  extract  in  this  connection  describing  still  more  fully  the  philos- 
ophy of  the  literal  and  spiritual  sense. 

"  The  reason  why  this  literal  sense  is  called  a  cloud  is,  because  it  is  in  obscurity 
in  respect  to  the  internal  sense,  for  this  latter  is  in  the  light  of  heaven;  the  rea- 
son why  it  is  in  obscurity  and  like  a  cloud  is,  because  it  is  for  man  during  his 
abode  in  the  world,  whereas  the  internal  sense  is  for  man  when  he  comes  into 
heaven :  but  it  is  to  be  noted  that  man,  during  his  abode  in  the  world,  is  at  the 
same  time  in  the  internal  sense  of  the  Word,  when  he  is  in  the  genuine  doctrine  of 
the  Church  as  to  faith  and  as  to  life,  for  by  iliat  doctrine  the  internal  sen.se  of  the 
Word  is  then  inscribed  both  on  his  understanding  and  his  will,  on  his  understand- 
ing, by  faith,  and  on  his  will  by  life.  Such  a  man,  when  he  comes  into  heaven,  ap- 
prehends the  Word  no  otherwise  than  entirely  according  to  its  internal  sense,  and 
knows  nothing  of  its  external  sense,  this  latter  appearing  to  him  at  that  time  as  a 
cloud  that  absorbs  the  rays  of  his  light.  It  is  said  that  man  then  apprehends  the 
Word  according  to  its  internal  sense,  and  not  according  to  its  external  scn.'*e  ;  the 
reason  of  this  is,  because  all,  who  are  in  heaven,  are  instructed  by  the  Lord  from 
Truth  Divine  which  appertains  to  man,  thus  from  the  Word  ;  the  reason  is,  be- 


*  "The  Word  is  written  by  mere  correspondences,  and  hence  it  is  of  such  a  quality  as 
to  conjoin  in  heaven  with  man  ;  for  heaven  is  in  the  written  sense  of  the  Word,  and  the 
internal  scn^e  corresponds  to  the  external  sense,  wherefore,  where  the  Word  is  read  by 
men,  the  angels,  wlio  are  attendant  upon  him,  ])erceive  it  in  the  spiritual  sense,  which 
is  the  internal  sense,  heuee  a  holy  principle  from  the  angels  flows-in,  by  which  there  is 
conjunction  ;  lor  this  end  such  a  Word  was  given." — A.  C,  10,687. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  81 

cause  man  is  in  the  ultimate  of  order,  and  all  interior  things  close  in  the  ulti- 
mate, the  ultimate  being  as  it  were  a  prop  [or  support]  to  things  ulterior,  on 
which  the  latter  subsist  and  rest.  The  Word  in  the  letter  is  Divine  Tnith  in  the 
ultimate  of  order,  in  like  manner  the  man  of  the  Church,  to  whom  Divine  Truth 
appertains,  as  to  liis  natural  and  sensual  principle  ;  in  this  latter,  as  in  the  for- 
mer, interior  things  terminate  and  rest.  They  are  as  a  house  and  its  foundation ; 
the  house  itself  is  heaven,  and  Divine  Truth  there  such  as  the  Word  is  as  to  the  in- 
ternal sense,  and  the  foundation  is  the  world,  and  Divine  Truth  there  such  as  the 
Word  is  in  the  e.xternal  sense.  As  a  house  rests  on  its  foundation,  so  also  heav- 
en on  the  Church,  consequently  the  Divine  Truth  in  heaven  upon  the  Divine 
Truth  in  earth ;  for  there  is  a  continual  connexion  from  the  Lord  through  heaven 
even  to  man  by  the  Word.  This  is  the  reason  why  it  is  always  provided  by  the 
Lord,  that  there  may  be  a  Church  on  earth,  where  Divine  Truth  may  be  in  its 
ultimate.  This  is  an  arcanum  which  no  one  as  yet  knows.  Let  all  therefore 
take  heed  to  themselves,  lest  they  injure  the  Word  by  any  means,  for  they  who 
injure  the  Word,  injure  the  Divine  [principle]  itself." — A.  C.  9430. 

I  have  thus  endeavored  to  unfold,  by  the  light  of  Swedenborg's  own  explana- 
tions, the  peculiar  genius  of  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word.    It  is  doubtless  the 
prominent  feature  of  the  system,  and  that  against  Avhich  objections  are  urged  in 
the  greatest  number  and  with  the  most  confidence.   But  they  have  invariably  - 
shot  wide  of  the  principle  which  forms  the  foundation  of  the  theory.    Yet  the^ 
theory  is  surely  entitled  to  be  judged  by  its  distinguishing  principle-    If  this  bC 
erroneous,  the  fallacy  would  seem  to  be  capable  of  being  detected  and  pointed 
out.    I  am  not  aware  that  this  has  either  been  done  or  attempted.    Though  con- 
siderably conversant  with  all  the  works  which  have  been  published  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  system  of  Swedenborg,  I  know  not  of  a  single  one  which  has  assumed 
to  meet  the  argument  on  its  true  merits.    They  invariably  blink  the  real  question 
at  issue,  and  instead  of  encountering  the  principle,  aim  their  assaults  entkely  at  ' 
the  application.    Of  this  we  justly  complain.    Our  belief  in  the  soundness  of  the 
applications  rests  altogether  in  the  soundness  of  the  fundamental  principle.  ■ 
Why  is  not  this  worthy  of  consideration   It  lays  claim  to  the  character  of  reason, 
science,  and  philosophy,  and  I  can  scarcely  imagine  any  problem  in  Swedenborg 
that  should  seem  more  staggering  to  a  non-recipient  of  his  views,  than  is  that 
which  we  find  in  this  unanimous  refusal  to  entertain  the  radical  principle  which 
lies  at  the  basis  of  his  bibUcal  revelations.    The  matter  would  be  somewhat  alle- 
viated, if  even  a  reason  were  assigned  for  thus  declining  to  meet  his  adherents 
on  the  only  ground  on  which  they  claim  to  be  met ;  for  it  is  on  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  system  that  their  assent  to  it  has  been  yielded.    How  then  is  it 
possible  that  any  arguments  should  have  weight  with  them  which  pay  no  at- 
tention to  these  principles  ? 

I  am  certainly  reluctant  to  be  forced  to  recognize  the  operation  of  moral  causes 
in  the  procedure  to  which  1  now  advert.  I  do  not  venture  to  charge  upon  our 
opponents  the  conscious  influence  of  any  other  than  intellectual  considerations  in 
prompting  the  objections  urged  against  the  interior  purport  of  the  Word.  But 
I  know  not  that  I  shall  wrong  any  one  by  citing  two  or  three  passages  from  Swe- 
denborg himself,  in  which  he  very  clearly  intimates  the  existence  of  a  latent 
aversion  in  many  minds  to  the  acknowledgment  of  any  sense  in  the  Word  be- 
yond that  of  the  letter. 

"  It  may  be  expedient  here  briefly  to  say  how  the  case  is  with  illustration  and 
information  from  the  Word ;  every  one  is  illustrated  and  informed  from  the 
Word  according  to  the  affection  of  truth  and  the  degree  of  the  desire  thereof,  and 

6 


83 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


according  to  the  faculty  of  receiving,  they  who  are  in  ilhistration,  as  to  their  in- 
ternal man  are  in  the  light  of  heaven ;  for  the  light  of  heaven  is  Avhat  illustrates 
man  m  the  truths  and  goods  of  faith.  They  who  are  thus  illuminated,  appre- 
hend the  Word  as  to  its  interiors  ;  wherefore  they  from  the  Word  make  to  them- 
selves doctrine,  to  which  they  apply  the  sense  of  the  letter :  but  they  who  are 
not  in  the  affection  of  truth  from  good,  and  thence  in  the  desire  of  growing 
wise,  are  more  blinded  than  illustrated  when  they  read  the  Word,  for  they  are 
not  in  the  light  of  heaven ;  and  from  the  light  of  the  would,  which  is  called  the 
lumen  of  nature,  they  see  only  such  tilings  as  are  in  agreement  with  worldly 
thmgs,  and  thus  from  the  fallacies,  in  which  the  external  senses  are,  they  lay 
hold  of  falses,  which  appear  to  them  as  truths.  Hence  the  generality  of  them 
make  to  themselves  no  doctrine,  but  abide  in  the  sense  of  the  letter,  which  they 
apply  to  favor  falses,  especially  such  as  are  m  agreement  with  the  loves  of  self 
and  of  the  world  ;  but  they  who  are  not  of  this  character,  merely  confirm  the 
doctrinals  of  their  own  Church,  and  are  not  concerned,  neitlier  do  they  know, 
whether  they  be  true  or  false." — A.  C.  9382. 

"  There  are  spirits  who  are  in  other  respects  good,  but  Avho  caimot  as  yet  be 
admitted  into  heaven,  because  they  are  not  willing  to  hear  and  to  admit  the  in- 
terior, and  still  less  the  more  interior,  things  of  the  W'ord ;  and  who,  on  this  ac- 
count, thought  evil  against  me  and  interpreted  what  I  said  in  an  evil  sense.  For 
those  who  do  not  approve  internal  things,  cannot  learn  those  things  which  belong 
to  the  Ulterior  and  internal  man ;  for  they  are  ignorant  that  there  are  interior 
things,  still  less  do  they  know  that  things  more  interior  exist ;  hence,  in  respect  to 
works  of  faith,  they  call  those  good  which  are  done  by  good  men,  in  obedience 
)to  the  Word,  and  from  a  good  heart.  But  when  they  are  told  that  good  works 
must  be  works  of  charity,  and  that  charity  is  of  mercy,  and  thus  from  the  Lord 
the  Savioyir,  they  admit  that  it  is  so,  but  they  do  not  think  so  profoundly  as  to 
see  that  it  is  so.  Such  spirits,  therefore,  as  cannot  as  yet  admit  ulterior  trutlis, 
cannot  as  yet  be  introduced  by  the  way  of  knowledge  [even]  into  the  exterior 
heaven. 

"  Moreover,  such  as  will  not  at  all  hear  or  admit  of  interior  things,  remain  out 
of  heaven,  nor  can  they  do  otherwise  than  hate  such  things,  because  they  are 
more  or  less  interior,  and  also  those  who  teach  them.  As  upon  earth  there  will, 
as  I  think,  be  many  who  will  hate  the  interior  and  more  inward  things  of  the 
Word,  because  they  more  closely  touch  the  life  of  their  love,  in  favor  of  which 
they  object  to  certain  difficulties  which  appear  to  them  as  impossible  to  be  ex- 
plained ;  thus  they  rather  prefer  that  the  way  to  interior  things  should  be  closed 
against  them,  than  that  they  should  favor  them  by  their  assent;  besides  this, 
they  are  not  willing  to  be  disquieted  by  such  thmgs  as  they  assert  they  are  not 
capable  of  understanding. 

"  Such  spirits  have  very  often  conversed  with  me,  and  have  frequently  re- 
proached me  for  teaching  interior  things,  because  such  things  appeared  as  para- 
doxical to  them ;  and  also  some  this  day  who  were  of  a  similar  character,  and 
who  on  that  account  thought  ill  of  the  acts  of  my  life.  In  a  word,  at  the  present 
time  the  heaven  of  spirits  is  almost  filled  with  such ; — but  it  is  otherwise  with 
all  such  as  are  in  heaven."— S.  D.  1139-1141. 

This  may  well  be  supposed  if  that  is  true  which  follows : 

"  All  in  the  spiritual  world,  who  are  inwardly  evil,  how  moral  soever  their 
external  life  in  the  world  has  been,  cannot  at  all  bear  any  one  who  adores  the 
Lord,  and  lives  a  life  of  charity ;  as  soon  as  they  see  such  persons,  they  infest 
and  injure  or  treat  them  opprobriously.  I  have  frequently  wondered  at  this  cir- 
cumstance, as  also  all  must  do  who  are  unacquainted  with  it,  inasmuch  as  the 
same  persons,  when  in  the  world,  could  bear  to  hear  preachings  concerning  tlie 
Lord,  and  also  concerning  charity,  and  even  spoke  doctrinally  upon  such  things 
themselves,  and  yet  when  they  become  spirits  they  cannot  bear  them ;  the  rea- 
son however  is,  because  this  aversion  is  implanted  or  hiherent  in  the  evil  in 
which  they  are  immersed;  for  in  their  evil  there  exists  enmity,  yea,  hatred 
against  the  Lord,  and  also  again.st  tliose  who  are  led  by  the  Lord,  that  is,  who  are 
in  the  life  of  charity;  but  this  enmity  and  hatred  lies  concealed  in  their  spirit^ 


y^i^e*^-*'    ^^^^^  '^^ 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


83 


wherefore  they  are  in  them  when  they  become  spirits,  and  then  is  disclosed  that 
antipatliy  or  opposition  to  the  Lord  and  to  such  as  are  led  by  him,  which  is  in- 
herent in  evil." — A.  E.  394. 

I  have  already  remarked  that  persons  in  this  state  are  not  necessarily  aware 
of  the  fact.  They  would  not  consciously  reject  the  spiritual  and  internal  things 
of  the  Word  simply  because  they  are  such  ;  but  it  may  still  be  suggested  whether 
it  is  not  possible,  that  upon  a  rigid  inquest  into  themselves,  they  might  detect  a 
hidden  disrelish  of  the  interior  sense  of  the  Scriptures  as  bearing  upon  the  in- 
terior life  and  soul  of  their  affections.  So,  on  the  'other  hand,  when  the  spir- 
itual state  is  intrinsically  good,  there  may  be  an  equally  unconscious  reception 
of  the  essential  verities  of  the  internal  sense. 

"The  doctrine,  which  should  be  for  a  lamp,  is  what  the  internal  sense 
teaches,  thus  it  is  the  internal  sense  itself,  Avhich  in  some  measure  is  evident  to 
every  oiie,  although  he  is  ignorant  what  the  internal  sense  is,  who  is  in  the  ex- 
ternal from  the  internal,  that  is,  to  whom  the  internal  man  is  open;  for  heaven, 
which  is  in  the  internal  sense  of  the  Word,  flows-in  with  that  man  when  he 
reads  the  Word,  enlightens  him,  and  gives  him  perception,  and  thereby  teaches 
him  :  yea,  if  ye  are  willing  to  believe,  the  internal  man  appertaining  to  man  is 
of  itself  in  the  internal  sense  of  the  Word,  since  it  is  heaven  in  the  least  efRgy, 
and  hence  is  with  angels  in  heaven  when  it  is  open,  wherefore  also  it  is  in  like 
perception  with  them ;  which  also  may  be  manifest  from  this  consideration, 
that  the  interior  intellectual  ideas  of  man  are  not  such  as  his  natural  ideas  are, 
to  which  nevertheless  they  correspond  ;  hwi  of  what  quality  they  are,  man  is  ig- 
norant so  long  as  he  lives  in  the  body,  yet  he  comes  into  them  spontaneously  ~ 
when  he  comes  into  the  other  life,  because  they  are  ingrafted,  and  by  them  he  is 
instantly  in  consort  with  the  angels.  Hence  it  is  evident  that  man,  whose  mter- 
nal  is  open,  is  in  the  internal  sense  of  the  Word,  although  he  is  ignorant  of  it ; 
hence  he  has  illustration  when  he  reads  the  Word,  but  according  to  the  light 
which  he  is  capable  of  having  by  means  of  the  knowledges  appertaining  to 
him."— ^.  C.  10,400. 

I  have  now  accomplished  what  I  designed  in  reference  to  the  most  important 
part  of  your  strictures  upon  the  system  of  revelation  which  Swedenborg  has  in- 
strumentally  given  to  the  world.  Although  the  subject  is  by  no  means  exhaust- 
ed, yet  I  may  perhaps  presume  to  think  that  its  most  prominent  points  are  pre- 
sented in  tolerably  full  relief,  so  that  our  true  position,  in  respect  to  the  main 
theme,  can  scarcely  be  henceforth  mistaken.  We  profess  to  be  able  to  assign  a 
rational  and  philosophical  reason  for  the  credence  which  we  give  to  the  truth, 
soundness,  and  sobriety  of  those  interpretations  of  the  inspired  Word  which  seem 
to  strike  you  and  others  as  the  climax  of  extravagance  and  absurdity.  That  the 
evidence  which  satisfies  us  on  this  head  will  also  satisfy  you,  I  dare  not  venture 
to  anticipate.  I  have  too  clear  a  perception — acquired  mainly  from  the  con- 
tents of  these  very  commentaries — of  the  multitudinous  influences  which  go  to 
moj^ld  the  forms  of  theological  opinion,  to  conceive  it  as  in  the  least  probable, 
that  the  confirmations  of  a  long  tract  of  years,  consohdated  and  strengthened 
by  powerful  circumstances  of  place,  name,  association,  and  commitment,  shall 
give  way  before  the  strange  and  startling  claims  of  a  body  of  disclosures  pro- 
fessedly emanating  from  the  spiritual  world  and  bearing  the  seal  of  divine  au- 
thority. Even  though  it  appeals  to  internal  evidence — relying  exclusively  for 
reception  on  its  accordance  with  the  clearest  judgment  and  intuitions  of  the  rea- 
son— and  though  it  is  solely  on  this  ground  that  its  claims  have  been  admitted 
by  all  intelligent  receivers,  yet  we  find  no  difficulty  in  conceiving  that,  to  a  state 


84 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


of  mind  formed  by  the  prevailing  dogmas  of  the  church,  the  sustaining  evidence 
of  its  truth  shall  be  utterly  powerless  in  producing  conviction.    The  teachings  of 
these  doctrines  themselves  enable  us  to  solve  every  apparent  problem  of  this  na- 
ture, and  more  especially  as  it  respects  the  peculiar  feature  of  the  scheme  upon 
U'hich  I  have  so  fully  dwelt.    Instructed  as  we  are  in  the  close  and  indissoluble 
connection  between  the  spiritual  sense  and  the  spiritual  world,  we  can  easily  un- 
derstand how  a  dominant  incredulity  as  to  all  extraordinary  insight  in  the  one  de- 
partment shall  effectually  bar  the  admission  of  any  special  illumination  in  the 
other.   Yet  whatever  may  be  the  result,  I  shall  by  no  means  deem  it  lost  labor 
to  have  presented  the  subject  as  I  have  done  above,  as  it  has  enabled  me  clearly 
to  define  our  position,  and  to  show  the  exact  point  on  which  the  issue  between  us 
und  our  censors  is  to  be  joined.    It  has  also  afforded  me  an  opportunity  to  spread 
fairly  before  the  reader  a  series  of  interesting  and  important  extracts  from  Swe- 
denborg  himself,  of  which  it  may  be  presumed  a  tolerably  wide  perusal  will  be 
secured.    Tliis  is  always  gratifying  to  a  New  Churchman,  as  he  carmot  but  in- 
dulge the  belief  that  the  undefinahle  something — the  ineffable  air  and  character — 
which  breathes  through  his  pages,  will  strike  others  m  some  degree  as  it  strikes 
them.    So  far  from  being  able  to  conceive  that  they  offer  indications  of  a  mind 
unhinged,  they  can  scarcely  imagine  any  attribute  of  the  soundest  and  profound- 
est  intellect  which  does  not  display  itself  in  his  WTitings,  to  say  notliing  of  the 
vein  of  simplicity,  sincerity,  and  deep  religious  reverence,  which  pervades  every 
sentence.    But  he  can  have  lived  and  observed  to  very  little  purpose  who  has 
not  learnt  the  povver  of  adverse  preconception  to  neutralise  and  nullify  the 
strongest  evidence  of  truth.    Our  assurance,  therefore,  of  the  intrinsically  impreg- 
nable strength  of  our  position  is  by  no  means  the  measure  of  our  confidence  in 
the  conquests  they  shall  win  over  the  rooted  skepticism  of  the  Christian  mind. 
We  can  only  say  to  ourselves,  respecting  our  faith,  as  our  illumined  teacher  says 
of  some  point  which  he  is'  arguing  with  irresistible  force  in  the  face  of  opponents 
—I'  Though  they  may  not  admit  it,  yet  they  cannot  deny  it." 

Very  respectfully. 
Yours,  &c. 

GEO.  BUSH. 

LETTER  VI. 

Rev.  and  Deak  Sir  : 

It  is  very  much  of  a  seided  principle  with  the  adherents  of  Swedenborg,  that 
it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  report  the  evidence  of  the  truth  of  his  disclosures. 
It  must  be  seen  by  its  own  light  in  the  works  in  which  it  is  embodied.  I  pre- 
sume it  will  be  confidently  said  by  every  present  receiver  of  the  system,  who 
has  not  imbibed  it  from  childhood,  that  nothing  but  the  actual  perusal  of  the  writ- 
ings could,  by  any  possibility,  have  wrought  the  conviction  which  has  sprung 
up  in  his  mind.  If  interrogated  as  to  what  it  is,  precisely,  in  these  writings  to 
which  the  eflect  is  owing,  they  will  perhaps  be  unable  to  give  a  more  delinite 
answer  than  to  say,  that  it  is  a  certain  indescribable  coincidence  between  their 
teachings  and  the  deductions,  intuitions,  and,  more  than  all,  the  sentiments,  of 
their  own  mmds.  They  find  in  them  a  wonderful  response  to  the  voice  of  their 
inmost  souls,  of  which  they  can  convey  no  more  fitting  idea  than  by  referring 
to  the  effect  of  the  Christian  Scriptures  upon  the  mind  of  a  skeptical  inquirer. 


'7bil''''-J     Zf^Si^     jL^ix'oi^l  i 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


85 


You  will  doubtless  agree  with  me  that  there  is  no  possible  process  of  reasoning 
— no  presentation  of  evidence — so  likely  to  prevail  with  an  infidel  in  proof  of  the 
truth  of  Christianity,  as  a  candid  perusal  of  the  documents  of  our  faith,  contained 
in  the  New  Testament.  If  conviction  fails  to  be  the  result  in  such  a  case,  you 
camiot  but  doubt  as  to  the  presence  of  the  condition — candor.  At  any  rate  you 
have  but  little  hope  of  a  favorable  issue  from  any  other  source.  If  John  and 
Matthew  and  Paul  fail  to  impress  him,  you  can  place  but  little  reliance  on  Faley 
and  Watson  and  Chalmers.  So  in  regard  to  Swedenborg.  He  must  be  read  in  or- 
der to  be  believed.  I  repeat  it  with  all  emphasis,  that  nothing  but  the  actual  peru- 
sal of  his  works  in  his  own  words  will,  in  one  case  in  ten  thousand,  produce  the 
conviction  of  his  truth;  and  when  this  is  done,  in  a  spirit  of  candor,  I  cannot 
conceive  that  in  one  case  in  ten  thousand  it  should  not  produce  this  effect.  This 
persuasion  grows  out  of  my  view  of  the  very  structure  and  laws  of  the  human 
mind.  I  confess  myself  utterly  unable  to  imagine  that  your  verdict  on  the  sub- 
ject should  be  different  from  mine,  provided  we  are  both  in  possession  of  the 
same  premises,  and  both  are  governed  by  an  equally  sincere  and  simple-hearted 
desire  to  ascertain  the  truth  of  God.  The  only  reason,  as  I  conceive,  why  I  have 
embraced  the  system  and  you  have  not,  is  because  I  have  read  more  and  pon- 
dered more  on  the  subject,  and  because,  from  circumstances  for  which  I  take  no 
credit,  my  mind  is  more  free  from  influences  adverse  to  reception.  But  however 
this  may  be,  I  am  positively  certain  that  in  my  own  case  belief  has  followed 
hiowledge.l^  On  no  point  is  my  assurance  more  firm  than  that,  without  reading 
Swedenborg,  not  entire,  but  extensively,  I  never  could  have  received  his  doc- 
trines, for  from  no  other  source  coidd  I  ever  have  felt  the  force  of  the  evidence  by 
Avhich  they  are  sustained. 

I  could  therefore  wish  it  to  be  distinctly  understood,  that  the  grand  scope  of 
the  work  in  which  I  am  now  engaged  is  not  so  much  to  establish  affirmatively 
the  truth  of  his  system,  as  to  repel  the  force  of  objections  against  it.  The  one 
can  be  done  independently  of  the  other.  Nor  do  I  doubt  that  confirmations, 
more  or  less  strong,  in  support  of  the  system  may  be  drawn  from  the  develop- 
ments of  various  sciences,  Especially  physiology  and  psychology.  But  in  gene- 
ral, the  proof  positive  must  come  from  the  revelations  themselves  as  Swedenborg, 
has  given  them.  No  amount  of  writing  about  them  will  stand  in  the  place  of  the 
actual  reading  of  them.  Sketches,  compends,  extracts,  all  fail  to  produce  the  effect. 
They  are  to  the  system  what  a  herbarium  is  to  a  garden.  The  living  doctrines 
must  be  studied  in  the  books  in  which  they  are  embodied.  We  can  only  say, 
Avith  the  Mystic  Animal  of  the  Apocalypse,  when  the  sealed  book  is  opened, 
"  Come  and  see." 

But  while  I  essay,  not  so  much  in  these  letters,  to  array  the  arguments  gomg 
to  prove  that  the  system  is  true,  the  attempt  is  legitimate  to  show  that  those 
urged  against  it  do  not  prove  that  it  is  not  true  ;  and  in  this  attempt  I  am  brought 
to  the  chapter  in  your  work  in  which  you  offer  a  series  of  "Hints  as  to  Sweden- 
borg's  visionary  state — his  revelations — visits  to  the  planets,"  &c.  The  term 
"  visionary,"  in  ordinary  usage,  has  very  much  the  import  o( fanciful  or  fantastic, 
and  though  I  am  strongly  impressed  that  you  intended  it  to  bear,  in  this  connec- 
tion, an  invidious  sense,  yet  as  "  visionary  state  "  may  also  imply  a  state  of  re- 
ceiving visions,  such  as  Swedenborg  aflu'ms  were  vouchsafed  to  him,  I  shall  not  at 
present  debate  the  propriety  of  the  phrase.  The  "  hints  "  are  the  main  things  to 
be  considered.    Your  opening  on  this  head  is  as  follows : 


86 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


"  We  are  now  to  consider  the  visions  of  Swedenhorg,  or  the  revelations  made  to  him 
,  'iw  the  world  of  spirits.  He  says,  that  his  interiors  were  opened,  and  that  he  saw 
things  in  the  other  world,  and  had  free  conference  with  the  inhabitants  for  a  long 
course  of  years.  And,  in  different  parts  of  his  writings,  he  gives  us  particular 
relations,  which  he  calls  "  memorable  relations,"  of  what  he  saw  and  heard,  and 
what  he  himself  said,  in  his  intercourse  with  the  world  of  spirits.  He  says,  he 
saw  and  heard  the  things  related,  not  in  sleep,  but  when  he  was  wide  awake. 
And  what  is  very  marvellous,  he  had  intercourse  with  men  and  things  in  this 
world,  as  we  commonly  do,  at  the  same  time  that  his  interiors,  i.  e.  the  powers 
of  his  spirit,  or,  as  the  transcendentalists  say,  the  depths  of  his  being,  were  opened, 
so  that  he  was  conversant  with  the  affairs  of  the  three  heavens,  and  also  of  the 
hells. 

"  And  here  let  me  advertise  you,  that  I  feel  myself  under  no  obligation  to  ac- 
count for  the  state  of  mind  which  Swedenborg  had,  or  for  the  things  which  are 
set  forth  in  his  memorable  relations.  Various  inquiries  naturally  present  themselves 
to  our  consideration,  among  which  are  the  following,  namely,  whether  Sweden- 
borg was  really  under  a  supernatural  influence,  and  whether  in  consequence  of 
this,  his  teachings  in  regard  to  the  Scriptures  and  the  things  of  heaven  and  hell 
are  clothed  with  divine  authority  and  are  binding  upon  our  faith  ;  or  whether  he 
was  in  a  state  similar  to  what  is  produced  by  Animal  Magnetism,  or  Mesmerism  ; 
or  whether  he  was  the  subject  of  a  remarkable  kind  of  insanity.  I  shall  not  turn 
aside  from  my  present  object  so  much,  as  to  attempt  to  give  a  definite  reply  to 
these  inquiries.  My  purpose  is,  to  proceed  according  to  the  direction  of  the 
ablest  advocates  of  Swedenborg,  and  to  look  directly  at  the  nature  of  his  com- 
munications. If  they  appear  to  possess  an  intrinsic  excellence,  and  to  be  consistent 
with  our  settled  views  of  the  word  and  works  of  God,  they  ought  to  be  cordially 
received  ;  if  otherwise,  to  be  rejected.  Or  if  there  is  found  to  be  a  mi.\ture  of 
truth  and  error,  the  truth  is  to  be  received,  and  the  error  rejected." — p.  59. 

And  here  I  am  struck  with  abundant  matter  for  admiration.  The  announce- 
ment of  "  the  play  of  Hamlet  with  the  part  of  Hamlet  omitted"  could  scarcely 
awaken  an  odder  train  of  ideas,  than  the  grave  intimation,  that  you  feel  "  under 
no  obhgation  to  account  for  the  state  of  mind  which  Swedenborg  had,"  and  that 
it  would  be  "  turning  aside  from  your  present  object  to  attempt  to  give  a  definite 
reply  to  the  inquiries  "  that  might  be  started  on  this  head  To  these  various  in- 
quiries which  you  say  "  naturally  present  themselves  for  consideration,"  I  will  ven- 
ture to  suggest  that  still  another  may  be  added,  viz.  what  object  you  could  have 
had  in  writing,  if  it  were  one  which  would  allow  you  to  waive  the  settlement  of 
the  very  question  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  whole  subject.  I  must  in- 
deed confess  to  no  very  familiar  acquaintance  with  the  etiquette  of  controversial 
debate,  but  I  had,  in  my  simplicity,  supposed  that  when  a  supernatural  revela- 
tion was  expressly  claimed,  and  this  revelation  was  held  to  bQ  marked  by  certain 
phenomena  which  could  only  be  accounted  for  by  supposing  its  truth,  it  fairly 
devolved  on  the  dissentient  to  show,  either  that  the  asserted  phenomena  did 
not  exist,  or,  if  they  did,  that  they  could  be  adequately  explained  on  some  other 
hypothesis  than  that  of  the  truth  of  the  revelation.  It  had  never  occurred  to 
me  that  a  mere  random  guess  at  a  solution — a  purely  perchance  hypothesis — 
the  assignment  of  a  cause  equally  apocryphal  with  that  rejected — could  be  seri- 
ously proposed  by  one  who  was  dealing  in  earnest  with  argument,  and  address- 
ing himself  to  men  who  could  hardly  be  supposed  incapable  of  seeing  at  once 
and  feeling  very  painfully  the  evasion. 

Let  me  endeavor  to  present  the  matter  in  its  true  light  and  bearings.  Here  are 
certain  facts  or  phenomena,  in  the  form  oi  Memorable  Relations  of  things  heard  aiul 
seen  in  Heaven  and  Hell.  How  are  these  facts  and  phenomena  to  be  accounted 
for  ?   The  Seer  himself  accoimts  for  them  by  ascribing  them  to  a  supernatural 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


87 


origin,  and  his  followers,  if  you  so  please  to  term  them,  are  satisfied,  judging 
from  their  intrinsic  nature,  that  this  is  the  true  and  the  only  solution.  You  do^' 
not  deny  the  fact  of  the  Relations  having  been  given,  or  that  they  are,  in  many 
respects,  very  remarkable,  but  you  think  differently  as  to  their  source.  You[j 
suggest  that  they  may  have  proceeded  from  quite  another  state  than  that  assumed 
— that  that  state  maj/  have  been  a  state  of  Mesmerism,  or  one  similar  to  it — that  it 
mat/  have  been  a  state  of  tjisanity — or,  finally,  it  may  have  been  a  state  of  dreaming. 
Now  what  is  more  obvious  than  that  you  are  bound,  in  fairness,  to  show  that 
one  or  all  of  these  hypothecated  states  is  capable  of  originating  the  phenomena 
in  question  ?  If  not,  to  what  purpose  are  they  adduced  ?  But  have  you  at- 
tempted in  the  least  to  show  this  ?  Have  you  made  the  slightest  approach 
toward^  a  clear  expose  of  the  laws  of  mental  action  under  the  influence  of  either 
of  these  causes Have  you  even  intimated  your  own  personal  belief  in  the  re- 
qlitji  of  those  phenomena  which  are  usually  termed  Mesmeric And  can  this  be 
considered  fair  dealing  with  your  readers — not  only  to  assign  causes  which  you 
do  not  i3rofess  to  demonstrate  as  sufficient  to  produce  the  effects,  but  some  of 
which  you  do  not  even  profess  to  believe  to  be  real I  am  aware,  indeed,  that 
you  have  something  to  say  of  the  tendency  of  fixed  habits  of  thought  and  a  pro- 
pensity to  theorizing  to  convert  ideal  conceptions  into  living  entities,  but  I  still 
insist  that  you  have  not,  in  the  present  case,  laid  open  the  matter  in  that  full  and 
formal  manner  which  the  peculiar  character  of  the  facts  required.  If  previous 
opinion  is  prone  to  run  into  visions,  the  objects  seen  in  the  visions  may  ordina- 
rily be  expected  to  agree  with  the  opinions.  In  this  instance,  they  do  in  multi- 
tudes of  particulars,  contradict  previous  impressions  as  might  easily  be  shown. 
The  causes  assigned,  therefore,  are  not  at  all  adequate  to  the  effects.  Indeed, 
\  f^ou.  will  excuse  me  if  I  say,  that  your  reasoning  in  the  premises  reminds  me  of 
P*  ^lothing  more  forcibly  than  of  the  logic  of  the  wondering  multitude  on  the  day 
^  ^fPentecost.  "  And  they  were  all  amazed,  and  were  in  doubt,  saying.  What 
meaneth  this .'  Others  mocking  said,  These  men  are  full  of  new  wine."  Here 
was  one  inexplicable  fact  sagely  attempted  to  be  accounted  for  by  another 
' '  vequally  inexplicable ;  for  who  had  ever  dreamed  that  the  most  abundant  potations 
>Sr      "^sw  wine  could  impart  the  gift  of  new  tongues  ? 

-  y     But  you  will  perhaps  refer  me  to  the  sequel  of  the  paragraph  for  your  reply. 
You  there  say,  "  My  purpose  is  to  proceed  according  to  the  direction  of  the 
ablest  advocates  of  Swedenborg,  and  to  look  directly  at  the  nature  of  his  com- 
munications.   If  they  appear  to  possess  an  intrinsic  excellence,  and  to  be  consist- 
ent with  our  settled  views  of  the  word  and  works  of  God,  they  ought  to  be  cor- 
dially received ;  if  otherwise,  to  be  rejected.   Or,  if  there  is  found  to  be  a  mix- 
ture of  truth  and  error,  the  truth  is  to  be  received  and  the  error  rejected."  Your 
'  I  C  purpose,  then,  is  to  appeal  to  the  nature  of  the  communications,  and  to  judge  of 
(them  by  their  intrinsic  excellence.    The  phraseology  I  think  pecuharly  unhappy 
(and  calculated  to  throw  somewhat  of  a  cloud  over  the  real  point  at  issue.  The 
\.  (^estion  concerns  not  so  much  the  intrinsic  excellence  of  the  subject-matter 
of  the  Memorabilia,  as  its  intrinsic  truth.   What  is  true  may  indeed  be  admitted 
tD  be  excellent,  but  the  term  suggests  rather  the  moral  quality  of  the  subject 
tlian  its  logical  verity,  and  when  matters  of  fact  are  in  question  the  verdict  is  to 
be  rendered  upon  their  trj^th  or  falsity,  and  not  upon  their  excellence  or  vileness. 
I  am  willing,  however,  to  waive  any  critical  distinction  of  this  nature  and  to  take 


88 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS, 


your  meaning  as  virtually  explained  by  what  follows— viz.  as  that  which  is 
"  consistent  with  our  settled  views  of  the  word  and  works  of  God,"  for  doubtless 
that  of  which  this  may  be  predicated  is  excellent,  provided  such  settled  views  are 
true  views,  which  may  perhaps  be  as  much  a  matter  of  question  as  anything  in- 
volved in  the  controversy.    But  of  this  I  may  say  more  hereafter. 

Now  m  "  looking  directly  at  the  nature  of  the  communications"  made  in  the 
Memorable  Relations — and  this  is  the  present  theme  of  discussion — it  is  to  be 
borne  in  mind,  that  the  things  made  kno-wii  in  them  have  relation  mainly  to  the 
state  of  spirits  and  angels — to  the  objects  and  scenery  which  sun'ound  them — and 
to  the  modes  of  their  intercourse  with  each  other  and  with  men  on  the  earth. 
These  are  the  matters  which  come  before  us  for  consideration.  The  statements 
respecting  them  are  what  we  are  called  to  pronounce  judgment  upon.  Swe- 
denborg  affirms  that  these  are  things  which  he  saw  and  heard  in  the  other  world 
in  consequence  of  a  peculiar  and  supernatural  translation  of  his  spirit  into  that 
world,  which  left  his  body  comparatively  unaffected/  The  ultimate  question 
to  be  decided  is  the  question  as  to  the  fact  of  such  a  translation.  The  real  object 
of  a  searching  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  communications  is,  to  learn  whether 
they  are  such  as  to  warrant  the  inference  that  they  are  to  be  ascribed  to  such  a 
source  and  to  that  only.  If  he  was  indeed  actually  illuminated  by  a  supernatural 
divine  influence,  I  presume  I  am  at  liberty  to  suppose,  that  you  would  feel  bound 
to  accept  his  utterances  as  being  virtually  the  voice  of  God  himself  and  clothed 
with  all  the  authority  that  you  regard  as  necessarily  pertaining  to  a  revelation  from 
heaven.  At  present,  however,  you  are  not  satisfied  on  this  head,  and  therefore 
feel  constrained  to  submit  the  nature  of  his  disclosures  to  a  very  close  examina- 
tion. « 

In  doing  this  an  obvious  question  arises  as  to  the  test  by  whiclT  their  truth  and 
reliability  is  to  be  tried.  If  you  insist  upon  the  literal  record  of  the  Scriptures 
being  made  the  standard,  then  it  is  to  be  determined  how  far,  in  this  direction,  the 
informations  of  the  Scriptures  extend — what  measure  of  actual  revelation,  on  this 
head,  they  profess  to  give.  We  may  safely  assume,  I  think,  that  so  far  as  his  dis- 
closures run  parallel  with  those  of  the  Bible,  they  must  be  consistent  with  them, 
when  the  latter  are  rightly  understood,  in  order  to  be  entitled  to  belief,  and  that 
they  are  so,  I  do  not  at  all  hesitate  to  affirm.  Whether,  however,  they  shall  in 
all  points  agree  with  what  you  would  term  the  ordinary  "  settled  views"  of  the 
mass  of  Christians,  is  another  question,  on  which  you  and  I  might  differ.  But 
this  creates  a  new  issue — viz.  what  is  the  genuine  teaching  of  Scripture.  And 
on  this  point  I  cannot  consent  that  the  prevalent  opinions  of  the  Church  shall  be 
made  the  criterion  of  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  his  disclosures.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  tenet  of  the  resurrection.  Swedenborg  assures  us  that  the  only  resurrection 
Which  is  ever  to  take  place,  takes  place  at  death,  and  is  merely  resuscitation  into 
l^he  new  life  of  the  spirit-world.  The  mass  of  the  Christian  church  believes  the 
true  doctrine  to  be  that  of  the  resurrection  of  the  buried  body,  in  some  sense  or 
other,  at  some  far  distant  period  of  time.  Here  then  is  a  direct  conflict  of  views, 
and  issue  is  to  be  joined  on  the  manner  in  which  the  inspired  declarations  are 
properly  to  be  interpreted.  My  own  conviction  and  that  of  multitudes  of  others 
■who  are  not  governed  by  Swedenborg's  construction,  is  firm  and  unwavering 
that  the  scriptures,  rightly  understood,  do  not  sanction  the  common  theory.  I  do 
not  see,  therefore,  that  you  can  justly  pronounce  against  the  nature  of  the  disclo- 


^6  5 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


89 


sures  on  this  point,  because  the  true  question  is  a  question  of  interpretation.  But,- 
passing  this,  the  fact  is  unquestionable  tliat  the  amount  o{ precise  scriptural  infor- 
mation in  respect  to  the  state  beyond  death  is  extremely  small.  The  extent,, 
therefore,  to  which  the  two  classes  of  disclosures  can  be  compared,  and  one 
made  the  test  of  the  truth  of  the  other,  is  proportionably  limited.  But  I  repeat 
the  admission  made  above,  that  as  far  as  they  do  run  parallel,  Swedcnborg  must 
be  consistent  with  the  true  sense  of  the  Bible  in  order  to  be  credible. 

But  we  are  forced  upon  another  supposition.  Suppose  that  Swedenborg  goes, 
in  his  revelations,  beyond  the  point  to  which  the  inspired  oracles  conduct  us,  and 
professedly  gives  forth  an  immense  mass  of  information  concerning  the  future 
life,  which  we  have  no  means  of  submitting  to  an  explicit  Scriptural  test,  in 
what  light  is  his  claim  then  to  be  viewed  ?  You  must,  I  think,  either  decide  that 
the  alleged  discoveries  are  false  of  course  and  not  to  be  entertamed  at  all,  or  that 
they  also  are  to  be  tried  on  the  ground  above  indicated— viz.  their  intrinsic  naiwre, 
as  consistent  or  inconsistent,  not  with  the  "  settled  views  of  the  word  of  God," 
which  is  excluded  by  the  supposition,  but  with  the  dictates  and  deductions  of 
right  reason — reason,  however,  instructed  by  the  general  tenor  of  revelation.  If 
you  take  the  former  position,  then  it  will  devolve  upon  you  to  show  that  every 
such  claim  is  precluded  in  the  nature  of  the  case  as  involving  an  impossibility 
per  se,  or  by  some  express  declaration  of  Jehovah  himself  forbidding  the  an- 
ticipation of  any  new  light  from  any  source  whatever  relative  to  the  eternal 
future  before  us.  I  am  so  little  able  to  perceive  any  plausible  ground  for  this 
assumption,  that  I  shall  venture  to  take  it  for  granted  that  you  do  not  plant  your- 
self upon  it.  The  tribunal  before  which  you  would  cite  the  Relations  is  that  of 
Reason,  enlightened  by  Revelation,  and  to  this  tribunal  I  will  accompany  them, 
after  having  adverted  to  your  preliminary  remarks. 

"  I  will  however  turn  your  thoughts  to  a  few  suggestions  in  regard  to  the  gen- 
eral subject  before  us.  We  will  then  take  the  position,  that  Swedenborg  was 
not  divinely  inspired.  Now  whether  he  had  dreams,  either  asleep  or  awake, 
or  was  in  a  Mesmeric  state,  or  was  the  subject  of  an  extraordinary  kind  of  in- 
sanity ;  it  was  perfectly  natural  that  the  actings  of  his  mind  should  be  according 
to  his.  settled  character  and  habits.  As  he  had  a  powerful  intellect  and  a  vivid 
imagination,  it  was  a  matter  of  course,  that  the  operations  of  his  mind,  whether 
dreaming,  or  Mesmerized,  or  insane,  wotild  be  vivid  and  powerful.  And  as  he 
had  previously  formed  a  habit  of  meditating  and  theorizing  upon  moral  and  re- 
ligious subjects,  upon  the  things  of  earth  and  heaven  and  hell;  then,  whether  he 
was  under  the  influence  of  dreaming,  or  Mesmerism,  or  mono-mania,  it  was 
very  natural  that  his  mind  should  dwell  on  these  same  subjects,  and  that  these 
subjects  and  his  theories  upon  them  should  not  only  be  revolved  in  his  excited 
imagination,  but  should  be  presented  before  him  with  extraordinary  vividness, 
and  in  such  forms  as  he  never  conceived  before.  The  general  theories  or  prin- 
ciples were,  we  may  suppose,  already  fixed  in  his  mind;  and  in  his  visionary 
state  they  received  their  particular  form  and  costume.  In  each  of  the  states 
above-mentioned,  the  imagination  possesses  a  wonderfully  creative  power,  and 
even  the  intellect  is  endued  with  unwonted  energy.  If  then  a  mind,  endued 
with  such  strength  and  fecundity  as  that  of  Swedenborg,  and  furnished  with 
such  habits  of  thinking  and  philosophizing,  is  found,  in  either  of  the  states  sup- 
posed, to  be  the  subject  of  operations  singularly  various  and  lively,  and  some- 
times delightful  and  sublime ;  we  have  no  occasion  to  be  stumbled  or  surpris- 
ed."—p.  60. 

"  We  will  take  the  position  that  Swedenborg  was  not  divinely  inspired."  As 
New  Churchmen  are  not  in  the  habit  of  claiming  inspiration  for  Swedenborg,  it 


90 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


would  have  been  more  to  the  purpose  had  you  said,  "  We  will  take  the  position 
that  Swedenborg  was  not  divinelij  illuminated.''^  This  position  you  are  certainly 
at  liberty  to  take,  provided  you  can  find  some  satisfactory  mode  of  accounting 
for  those  phenomena  of  his  case  which  we  confidently  believe  can  never  be 
solved  on  any  other  hypothesis  than  that  of  the  alleged  illumination.  In  pro- 
pounding your  own  solution,  however,  you  are,  as  I  conceive,  fairly  bound  to 
make  it  appear,  at  least  to  yourself,  that  the  cause  assigned  is  equal  to  the  pro- 
duction of  the  effect,  and  moreover  that  it  shall  be  a  real  and  not  a  supposititious 
or  hypothetical  cause,  as  such  a  character  completely  enervates  all  its  argimient- 
ative  efficacy.  Bringmg  then  your  proposed  solution  to  this  ordeal,  what 
shall  be  said  of  it First  concedmg  that  Swedenborg  possessed  "  a  powerful  in- 
tellect and  a  vivid  imagination"  and  then  assuming  that  his  mind  was  somehow 
brought  into  an  abnormal  state,  either  by  dreaming,  Mesmerism,  or  insanity,  you 
remark  that  it  is  perfectly  natural  that  its  actings,  in  that  state,  should  be  accord- 
ing to  his  settled  character  and  habits — that  having  previously  formed  a  habit  of 
meditating  and  theorizing  on  moral  and  religious  subjects,  upon  the  things  of 
heaven  and  hell,  he  would  of  cottrse  dwell,  in  his  abnormal  and  excited  state, 
upon  these  same  subjects,  and  they,  and  his  theories  upon  them,  would  be  pre- 
sented before  him  with  extraordinary  vividness,  and  in  such  forms  as  he  never 
before  conceived.  Now,  while  I  do  not  refuse  to  admit,  in  the  abstract,  the 
soundness  of  the  general  principle,  yet  I  am  compelled  to  say,  that  the  reasoning 
in  the  present  instance  is  vitiated  by  a  radical  defect  in  the  very  ground-work, 
and  that  is  the  entire  lack  of  evidence  in  regard  to  the  main  assumption.  The 
hypothesis  of  such  a  previous  habit  of  meditating  and  theorizing  on  the  phenom- 
ena of  the  other  life,  to  the  degree  which  would  loarrant  your  explanation,  is 
purely  gratuitous.  As  Swedenborg  was  an  eminently  pious  and  devout  man, 
we  may  indeed  suppose  that  his  thoughts,  like  those  of  every  other  man  of  the 
same  character,  were  very  conversant  with  tlie  themes  of  the  spiritual  world, 
and  being  also  of  a  philosophical  genius,  we  may  well  suppose  that  his  mind 
was  no  stranger  to  meditations  on  the  philosophy  of  man's  future  existence.  But 
all  this  may  be  said  of  hundreds  of  other  good  men,  and  I  should  feel  that  I  run 
very  little  risk  in  affirming  the  same  thing  of  yourself.  I  should  by  no  means 
think  it  strange,  could  the  truth  be  known,  that  you  had  pondered  as  deeply  and 
speculated  as  much  on  the  destmy  of  the  soul,  as  Swedenborg  had,  prior  to 
what  he  terms  his  illumination.  But  if  you  should  suddenly  lay  claim  to  super; 
nattural  revelations,  I  should  not  deem  myself  warranted  in  saying  that  the  fact 
could  be  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  a  simple  reference  to  your  former  habits 
of  religious  meditation;  for  m  that  case  I  could  not  see  why  multitudes  of  other 
men  in  the  community  should  not,  for  the  same  reason,  rise  up  and  assert  the 
same  claims.  In  a  word,  the  suggested  cause  would  not  appear  to  me  adequate 
to  account  for  the  effect.  So  also  in  regard  to  Swedenborg.  I  contend  that  you 
have  no  sufficient  grounds  for  supposing  the  existence  of  such  a  previous  in- 
tellectual and  moral  state  as  that  upon  which  you  would  build  your  solution  of 
the  facts  in  his  case.  "  The  general  theories  or  principles  were,  we  may  suppose, 
already  fixed  in  his  mind,  and  in  his  visionary  state  they  received  their  particular 
form  and  costume."  But  what  authority  have  you  for  making  this  supposition  ? 
And  to  what  does  it  amount  to  say  that  in  such  a  state  "  the  imagination  possess- 
es a  wonderfully  creative  power,  and  even  the  intellect  is  endued  witli  unwont- 


!.»-t  r/.ff 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


91 


ed  energy,"  so  long  as  you  have  no  evidence  that  the  state  described  was  his  ?  ■ 
You  have  clearly  postulated'^om  soUition  of  the  case  upon  conditions  arbitrarily^ 
assumed,  and  have  reasoned  as  though  tlie  postulates  were  axioms/  This  may  dO) 
in  science,  but  it  is  a  very  equivocal  procedure  in  regard  to  moral  subjects. 

I  shall  venture,  then,  to  affirm  that  you  have  not  as  yet  succeeded  in  setting 
aside  the  evidence,  drawn  from  facts,  of  Svvedenborg's  illumination,  because  the 
mode  in  which  you  account  for  these  facts  rests  upon  a  merely  conjectural  basis 
of  which  not  the  slightest  proof  is  adduced.  His  biography  is  open  to  you,  and 
if  you  find  in  that  a  warrant  for  your  assumptions,  let  it  be  produced.  I  have 
not  found  it.  Still  I  do  not  deny  but  that  other  modes  of  solution  remaua  which 
may  be  argumentatively  available,  and  these  I  shall  consider  when  they  come 
up.  All  that  I  at  present  assert  is,  that  you  have  offered  an  explanation  of  a 
mental  phenomenon,  which  rests  solely  on  a  gratuitous  assumption,  and  which 
is  therefore  of  no  value. 

But  supposing  yourself  in  possession  of  the  true  key  to  the  marvel,  you  go  on 
to  apply  the  theory  to  the  Relation  concerning  the  state  of  infants  in  the  other 
life.    Proceeding  on  the  presumption  that  this  had  been  a  theme  of  much  pre- 
vious reflection,  your  fancy  can  easily  shadow  forth  his,  and  you  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  seeing  how  his  dreaming,  or  Mesmerised,  or  insane  imagination  could 
have  dressed  up  the  ruling  idea  that  had  taken  possession  of  his  mind  in  the 
forms  presented  in  his  writings.    Without  here  adverting  to  the  lack  of  all  tes- 
timony to  the  fact  of  such  former  profound  study  upon  this  particular  point,  it 
will  be  seen  upon  reference  to  his  Relations  that  they  involve  numerous  items 
of  statement  ultimately  connected  with  his  entire  system  of  the  future  hfe,  and 
which  are  as  remote  as  possible  from  the  ideas  that  would  naturally  enter  in- 
to a  mere  dreaming  representation  of  the  heaven  of  infants.  Thus,  for  instance, 
he  says  their  first  speech  is  merely  a  sound  of  affection,  which  by  degrees  be-  .i^.^^iftc 
comes  more  distinct,  as  the  ideas  of  thought  enter;  for  the  ideas  of  thought  from  , ,(/  . 
the  alfections  constitute  all  angehc  speech.    This  refers  us  not  only  to  what  he  -  _^  ■ 
says  elsewhere  of  vocal  sound  among  spirits,  but  also  to  his  profound  philoso- 
phy in  regard  to  the  relation  between  affection  and  thought.  Again  he  says  that 
some  infants  are  of  the  disposition  of  the  spiritual,  and  some  of  the  celestial  an- 
gels; hinting  herein  at  a  distinction  of  the  angelic  orders  which  is  expanded 
elsewhere  at  great  length  and  set  forth  as  pre-eminently  important.   He  remarks, 
moreover,  that  in  the  Grand  Man  of  heaven  all  infants  are  in  the  province  of  the 
eyes,  those  in  the  province  of  the  left  eye,  who  «re  of  a  sphitual  disposition, 
and  those  in  the  province  of  the  right  eye,  who  are  of  a  celestial  disposition,  I 
am  not  here  discussing  the  question  of  the  truth  of  these  representations,  as 
whether  heaven  is,  in  any  sense,  arranged  into  the  human  form,  which  is  it- 
self a  very  strange  dream  if  it  is  merelxj  a  dream ;  but  my  object  is  to  show  that 
what  he  asserts  of  the  state  of  infants  ui  the  other  world,  is  simply  a  part  of  a 
stupendous  scheme  of  spiritual  existence  which  is  throughout  so  perfectly  ad- 
justed and  harmonized  in  all  its  parts,  and  embodying  so  sublime  a  conception, 
that  whenever  properly  apprehended,  the  idea  of  its  being  the  product  of  a  mere 
dreaming,  excited,  or  insane  imagination,  is  no  less  extravagant  than  would  be 
that  of  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt  having  been  built  by  myriads  of  men  in  a  state 
of  somnambulism. 
So  also  as  to  what  is  contained  m  the  following  paragraph. 
.^St  Li  Ca(( 


92  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

"  Suppose  a  man  accustomed  to  profound  thinking,  and  to  moral  and  philo- 
sophical speculation,  like  Swedenbor;i.  Looking  at  the  mixed  characters  of 
men  in  the  present  life,  he  finds  it  difficult  to  see  how  they  can  be  at  once  re- 
ceived either  into  heaven,  or  hell ;  and  he  begins  to  think  there  may  be  an  inter- 
mediate state,  where  those  who  die,  will  undergo  a  farther  process  of  discipline, 
which  will  more  completely  develope  and  fix  their  character,  and  thus  fit  them 
for  the  world  of  happiness,  or  of  wo.  This  idea  ma)''  at  length  become  settled  in 
his  mind,  not  perhaps  as  an  article  of  faith,  but  as  an  opinion,  which  appears 
suited  to  remove  his  difficulties,  and  to  satisfy  his  feelings.  Now  let  the  subject 
be  carried  into  his  dreams,  or  into  some  of  the  more  active  states  of  mono- 
mania ;  and  his  opuiion,  or  speculation  will  become  a  living  reality,  and  he  will 
see  dead  men  in  the  other  world  very  much  in  the  condition  in  which  he  had 
seen  them  here — engaging  in  conversation  and  controversy,  pursuing  various 
occupations,  and  passing  through  various  scenes  of  trial,  and  all,  of  course, 
moie  humano.  So  long  as  he  continues  in  this  state,  all  the  objects  of  his  thoughts 
wiU  stand  before  his  mind  as  realities  and  certainties.  And  it  will  be  nothing 
strange,  if  he  should  imagine,  that  these  creations  of  his  excited  mind  are  all 
from  God,  and  ought  to  be  received  as  divine  revelations." — p.  63. 

This  you  regard  as  an  adequate  view  of  the  process  by  which  a  man  "  accus- 
tomed to  profound  thinkmg  and  to  moral  and  philosophical  speculation,"  may 
have  been  led  from  the  entertainment  of  an  opinion  to  the  ideal  creation  of  a 
world  of  corresponding  phantasms,  and  to  the  belief  of  a  consequent  divine 
mission.  Such  is  the  genesi^'m  your  judgment,  of  the  hallucination  of  an  intel- 
lect gifted  by  nature  and  by  culture  far  beyond  the  standard  of  ordinary  minds. 
You  do  not  indeed  say,  in  express  terms,  that  you  regard  the  dominant  idea 
which  has  thus  passed,  in  his  mind,  into  definite  form  and  feature,  as  erroneous, 
but  this  is  evidently  implied,  for  if  you  deemed  it  accordant  with  reason  or  rev- 
elation you  would  scarce  feel  under  the  necessity  of  accounting  for  it  from  the 
play  of  an  active  fancy  ministering  to  the  workings  of  a  morbid  speculation. 
The  only  question,  m  that  case,  would  be  as  to  the  probability  of  his  having 
seen  the  truth  by  any  other  than  the  ordinary  intellectual  eye — the  same  eye  by 
which  you  profess  to  see  it  not  to  be  the  truth.  Now  you  will  allow  me  to  sug- 
gest, first,  that,  as  already  remarked,  you  have  no  positive  evidence  whatever, 
that  the  current  of  his  prior  speculations  ran  peculiarly  in  this  channel ;  and, 
secondly,  that  in  stating  the  facts  as  he  does  on  this  head,  he  professes  to  give 
the  most  rational  and  philosophical  reasons  for  the  existence  of  such  an  inter- 
mediate state  of  souls  as  he  describes,  refemng  it  to  the  very  nature  and  consti- 
tution of  man,  and  the  necessary  operation  of  the  laws  by  which  he  is  governed 
as  a  being  of  affection  and  intellect;  and  moreover  that  the  force  of  these  reasons 
must  be  in  some  way  neutral&ed  before  the  asserted  fact  can  be  fairly  enrolled 
in  the  category  of  mental  delusions.  The  reasons  adduced  have  been  found  ad- 
equate, by  multitudes  of  intelligent  minds,  to  command  their  full  conviction,  so 
that  if  they  are  fallacious  there  is  more  of  a  problem  to  be  accounted  for  than 
Swedenborg's  own  hallucination.  How  happens  it  that  his  reveries  or  ravings 
carry  with  them  such  a  power  of  rational  evidence  as  to  infect  the  sanest  and 
soberest  minds  with  the  most  confident  persuasion  of  their  truth 

But  the  main  point  on  which  I  take  exceptions  to  your  remarks  on  this  head 
is,  that  you  have  assumed  the  leading  idea  respecting  an  intermediate  state  to 
be  false,  and  on  this  assumption  have  endeavored  to  account  for  the  fact  of  his 
affirming  it.  Now  if  the  thing  asserted  be  intrinsically  true,  that  tmth  may 
account  for  the  assertion  and  supersede  the  necessity  of  any  other  mode  of  ex- 
plaining it.   The  only  question  to  be  determined,  is  as  to  the  fact  of  the  supema- 

^   —  ■ 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


93 


taral  seeing.  This  would  probably  create  little  difficulty  to  your  mind,  provided 
only  the  things  seen  were  intrinsically  true  ;  and  this  is  the  ground  v/hich  I  ven- 
ture to  take.  I  maintain  the  fact  of  an  intermediate  state,  and  found  the  position 
upon  the  nature  of  man,  as  absolutely  requiring  it.  It  is  not,  however,  de- 
manded of  me  to  argue  the  point,  since,  as  you  take  its  falsity  for  granted,  you 
have  brought  no  arguments  against  it  to  which  I  can  reply.  Whenever  you  see 
fit  to  do  this,  I  will  pledge  myself  to  meet  you  in  the  open  field  of  debate.  If 
you  hold  that  the  nature  of  man  is  not  the  true  criterion,  but  that  every  question 
of  this  kind  is  to  be  decided  by  the  testimony  of  the  Word  of  God,  I  shall  not 
shrink  from  an  endeavor  to  show  the  contrary,  viz.  that  there  are  multitudes  of 
truths  relating  to  our  being  and  destiny  which  are  determinable  on  their  own 
evidence,  and  which  compel  assent  as  imperiously  as  anything  in  the  letter  of 
Scripture,  although  it  is,  at  the  same  time  impossible  that  they  should,  when  set- 
tled, be  in  conflict  with  the  true  sense  of  Scripture,  as  this  would  be  to  set  one 
class  of  truths  at  war  with  another,  which,  of  course,  can  never  be.  And  I 
must  here  be  permitted  to  say,  that  I  know  of  no  principle  more  disastrous  to 
the  interests  of  the  Christian  faith,  than  that  the  express  letter  of  revelation  is  to 
be  made  the  standard  of  all  attainable  knowledge  in  the  various  departments  of 
science,  physical  and  psychological.  The  results  reached  in  those  sciences  will 
inevitably  trench,  in  some  part  or  other,  upon  the  announcements  of  lioly  writ, 
just  as  Geology,  for  instance,  has  come  in  contact,  not  to  say  collision,  with  the 
literal  record,  and  the  established  construction,  of  Genesis.  These  results  it  is 
utterly  impossible,  on  good  grounds,  to  gainsay.  The  Author  of  our  nature  has 
so  formed  the  human  mind  that  it  ccmnot  resist  the  strength  of  the  evidence  when 
it  is  fairly  arrayed  before  it,  and  if  this  evidence  is  of  such  a  character  that  the 
ordinary  interpretation  of  the  letter  of  the  Scriptures  cannot  stand  before  it,  that 
interpretation  will  give  way,  as  it  assuredly  ought.  But  what  then Is  the  es- 
sential truth  of  the  Word  thereby  endangered  ?  Not  in  the  least.  The  intended 
Ti'uth  will  stand  forth  eliminated  from  all  factitious  appendages  and  be  seen  to  be 
of  such  a  nature  as  to  be  entirely  consistent  with  every  sound  development  in 
whatever  sphere  of  research  and  discovery.  And  as  it  is  with  physical  science, 
so  will  it  be  with  psychological.  The  attempt  is  utterly  vain  to  repress  the  spirit 
of  inquiry  which  is  pushing  inwards,  outwards,  upwards,  and  downwards,  intent 
npon  exploring  the  depths  of  all  being,  and  especially  of  solving  the  problem  of 
man's  compound  nature,  and  through  the  medium  of  the  body  of  reaching  the 
mystery  of  the  soul.  By  the  issues  of  these  investigations,  carefully  and  scien- 
tifically conducted,  the  mind  will  infallibly  abide.  If  it  finds  intrinsic  truth 
in  Swedenborg's  disclosures,  it  will  receive  it  and  rest  in  it,  whether,  for  the 
present,  it  can  harmonize  it  with  the  verbal  declarations  of  Scripture  or  not. 
The  pious  zeal  which  would  fain  stay  this  process,  from  ostensible  reverence 
for  the  Bible,  builds  itself  upon  a  fundamental  fallacy,  to  wit,  that  we  can  be 
more  certain  of  having  compassed  the  true  sense  of  revelation  than  we  can  be 
of  the  soundness  of  our  conclusions,  drawn  from  scientific  premises.  The  delu- 
sion will  doubtless  be  eventually  dispelled,  but  only  in  consequence  of  a  long  and 
arduous  struggle,  and  from  a  clear  conviction  of  the  vantage-ground  given  by  it  to 
the  infidel  in  his  warfare  against  the  Word.  It  is  not  impossible  that  all  this  may 
strike  you  as  little  less  than  infidelity  itself,  but  I  have  weighed  my  words  and 
cancel  them  not. 


94 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


The  specimens  which  you  are  pleased  to  give  of  the  "  visions"  of  Sweden- 
borg  3'oii  preface  with  the  remark,  that  they  have  "  manifestly  the  quality,  tlic 
texture,  and  the  dress  of  what  often  occurs  in  dreaming,  or  in  the  mental  exer- 
cises of  the  insane."    Upon  this  I  would  observe,  in  passing,  that  dreams  ordi- 
narily occur  in  the  state  of  sleep,  and  that  if  all  Swedeuborg's  visions  took  place 
while  he  u^as  asleep,  the  sleeping  portion  of  his  existence  must  have  been  enor- 
mously great,  and  as  it  would  doubtle.?s  take  as  long  to  write  tliem  as  to  dream 
them,  it  would  seem  that  his  whole  life,  for  tliirty  years,  must  have  been  divid- 
ed between  dreaming  and  ^^"riting  out  his  dreams,  for  his  works,  which  contain 
them  are  exceedingly  voluminous,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  see  what  time  he 
could  have  had  for  anything  else.    Yet  it  is  clear  that  he  must,  in  some  way, 
have  found  time  for  extended  study,  as  these  works  contain  expositions  of 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  texts,  which  we  cannot  but  suppose  he  consulted 
in  the  pages  of  the  Bible.    How  then  could  he  have  contrived  to  compress  so 
much  labor  into  his  waking  hours     This  difficulty  is  enhanced  by  the  fact  tliat 
his  life  was  not  strictly  that  of  a  recluse,  but  more  or  less  that  of  a  public  man, 
who  was  much  Ln  society,  who  entertained  a  great  deal  of  company,  and  was 
very  frequent  in  journeys  and  voyages  to  and  from  his  native  country.  The 
only  solution  that  I  can  think  of  is,  that  what  5'ou  would  term  his  dreaming 
state  must  have  been  his  ordinary  state,  and  that  he  A^Tote  down  his  visions 
while  he  was  in  the  very  act  of  beholding  them  ;  and  this  would  seem  to  force 
upon  us  the  conclusion,  that  he  was  either  insane,  as  you  would  probably  infer, 
or  that  he  was  truly  the  subject  of  true  revelations.    The  latter  supposition,  if 
admitted,  will  solve  all  the  difficulties ;  but  if  we  adopt  the  former,  it  will  be  ob- 
viously a  fair  question,  whether  a  man  could  remain  for  a  long  course  of  years 
day  and  night  in  a  state  of  monomania,  fancying  himself  in  converse  with  spir- 
its and  angels,  which  were  all  the  time  the  mere  phantoms  of  his  own  brain,  and 
yet  in  his  intercourse  with  the  world,  at  home  and  abroad,  and  in  a  wide  corres- 
jjondence  with  his  friends,  betray  no  palpable  symptoms  of  mental  aberration. 
Read  his  biography— read  the  Eulogy  of  Sandel — the  testimony  of  Hardey, 
Sprmger,  Colm,  and  others  who  were  honored  with  his  acquaintance,  and  I  will 
venture  to  say  that  you  will  find  nothmg  from  eitlier  of  these  sources,  other  than 
the  claim  itself  to  spiritual  insight,  to  warrant  the  idea  of  any  tiling  in  his  speech  or 
demeanor  indicative  of  insanity.   Yet  I  ask  whether  it  be  in  the  range  of  prob- 
ability, that  a  mind  like  that  of  Swedenborg  could  pass,  by  a  transition  totally 
unperceived  bv  all  around  him,  from  the  most  perfect  soundness  to  a  confirmed 
dementatlon Woidd  not  the  eclipse  of  such  a  luminary  in  the  firmament  of 
science  be  widely  noted,  chronicled,  and  deplored  .'   That  innendos  of  a  mind 
diseased  were  here  and  there  scattered  abroad  by  certain  of  the  Swedish  clergy 
who  were  opposed  to  his  doctrines,  does  not  vacate  the  evidence  of  the  general 
fact  that  he  was  uniformly  regarded  by  all  his  most  intimate  friends — mainly 
men  of  name  and  distinction  in  the  realm— as  a  man  of  sane  and  sober  mind, 
although  his  addiction  to  abstruse  speculations  was  well  known.* 

»  "As  Swedenborg  in  his  youth  had  no  thougiit  of  the  employment  of  his  coming  life, 
it  maybe  easily  believed  that  he  was  not  only  a  learned  man  and  a  gentleman  after 
the  manner  of  the  times,  but  a  man  so  distinguished  for  wisdom  as  to  be  celebrated 
throughout  Europe,  and  also  possessed  a  propriety  of  manners  that  rendered  him  every- 
where an  honored  and  acceptable  companion.  Thus  he  continued  to  old  age,  serene, 
cheerful  and  agreeable,  with  a  countenance  always  illuminated  by  the  light  of  his  un- 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


95 


I  must  then  be  allowed  to  think,  that  there  is  a  problem  here  which  deserves 
far  more  attention  than  you  have  given  it.  The  hypothesis  proposed  is  encum- 
bered with  real  difficulties  of  fact  which  have  been  strangely  overlooked,  not  by 
yourself  only,  but  by  many  others  who  have  adopted  your  view  of  Swedenborg's 
case.  If  his  Relations  are  the  product  of  insanity,  we  wish  to  know  more  about 
the  laws  of  insanity,  and  especially  how  far  a  man  can  be  imder  its  influence  all 
the  time  for  thirty  years,  and  yet  succeed  in  hiding  it  from  his  most  intimate 
friends. 

But  you  proceed  to  furnish  your  readers  with  a  portion  of  the  evidence  that 
Swedenborg's  visions  have  manifestly  the  quality,  texture,  and  dress  of  what  of- 
ten occurs  in  dreaming  and  insanity.  As  a  proof  that  these  visions,  upon  close 
inspection,  resolve  themselves  into  "  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of,"  you  ad- 
duce one  of  the  memorable  Relations  setting  forth  "  the  lot  of  those  after  deatli 
who  have  confirmed  themselves  in  faith  alone  unto  justification"  adding  the  re- 
mark, that  this  is  "  a  point  which  he  looked  upon  with  the  utmost  dislike,  and 
which  it  was  the  object  of  many  of  his  revelations  to  refute ;"  as  to  which  I 
would  observe,  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say — "  which  it  was  the  object  of 
many  of  his  arguments  to  refute,"  for  as  to  having  himself  any  object  in  his  reve- 
lations, sucli  as  might  naturally  be  supposed  to  control  their  form  or  scope — any 
conscious  design  or  ability  of  his  own  to  apply  them  to  a  particular  purpose — 
we  do  not  by  any  means  allow  the  supposition.  Whatever  object  there  was  in 
these  revelations,  it  was  the  object  of  Him  who  granted  them,  and  not  of  him 
who  received  them.  What  should  we  think  of  the  intimation,  that  Daniel  or 
John  had  a  special  object  to  accomplish  by  their  revelations  .'  If  you  had  said  it 
was  the  object  of  Swedenborg's  revelations  to  expose  the  falsities  of  the  tenet  of 
justification  by  faith  alone,  1  should  have  no  objection  to  the  langviage,  but  that 
would  have  been  the  Lord's  object,  and  not  his. 

But  to  the  vision  itself.  And  here  I  am  forced  at  the  outset  to  confess  to  a  pe- 
culiar difficulty  in  treatmg  the  matter  from  not  knowing  precisely  the  point  of 
view  in  which  you  object  to  this  vision.  I  am  obliged,  therefore,  to  suppose 
either, 

(1.)  That  you  deny  the  main  position  which  the  vision  seems  designed  to  es- 
tablish, or  at  least  to  imply,  viz.  the  falsity  of  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith 
alone,  and  consequently  that  such  is  the  lot,  in  the  other  life,  of  those  who  have 
held  the  doctrine  on  earth.  Or, 

(2.)  That  whether  Swedenborg's  view  of  the  doctrine  be  theologically  true 
or  false,  you  still  deem  it  incredible  that  the  state  described,  can  be  such  as  he 
represents  it.  Or, 

(  3.)  That,  conceding  the  truth  to  be  intrinsically  what  he  affirms,  both  as  to  the 
doctrine  and  the  state,  you  do  not  believe  he  was  enabled  to  see  it  by  a  spirit- 
ual vision. 

Upon  one  or  the  other  of  these  bases  I  think  your  objections  must  rest.    I  will 


common  genius.  How  he  was  looked  upon  in  foreign  lands  I  do  not  know;  but  in 
Stockholm,  even  those  who  could  not  read  his  writings  were  always  pleased  to  meet 
him  in  company,  and  paid  respectful  attention  to  whatever  he  said." — Robsam's  Me- 
moire,  Hobart's  Life  of  Stvedenborg,  p.  220. 

"  He  spoke  very  deliberately,  and  it  was  a  great  pleasure  to  sit  with  him  at  table. 
As  soon  as  he  began  to  speak  all  oonversation  ceased,  and  the  slowness  of  his  deliTery 
served  to  increase  the  curiosity  of  the  listeners." — Id.  p.  212. 


96 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


advert  to  them  in  order.  As  to  the  first,  it  is  plain  that  it  amounts  to  a  purely 
theological  question,  viz.  what  is  the  true  Scripture  doctrine  of  justification,  and 
this  is  a  question  to  be  decided  upon  its  own  merits  independent  of  all  visions, 
whether  of  Swedenborg  or  any  one  else.  You  are  required  to  meet  him  on  this 
ground  simply  as  a  theologian.  But  this  you  have  declined  to  do.  You  have 
not  seen  fit  to  advance  the  shadow  of  an  argument  in  refutation  of  his  teachings, 
but  have  evidently  assumed  that  they  are  false  and  heretical  of  course,  because  at 
variance  with  the  accredited  doctrine  of  the  creeds  esteemed  evangelical  and 

S  orthodox.  This  therefore  leaves  me  nothing  to  say,  unless  I  choose  to  launch 
out  into  a  broad  discussion  of  the  subject  of  justification,  without  any  distinct 
propositions  to  guide  the  course  of  argument;  for  I  have  long  since  learned  that 

'there  are  no  formulas  of  beUef  on  any  point  among  Protestant  sects  by  the  exact 
phraseology  of  which,  as  written  in  their  creeds,  their  advocates  feel  themselves 
bound  to  abide.  Every  one  puts  his  own  construction  upon  them,  and  deems 
himself  called  to  defend  only  his  own  personal  belief.  I  can  only  say,  therefore, 
that  whenever  you  shall  see  fit  to  state  your  own  views  on  the  subject,  or  your 
own  defuiite  objections  to  Swedenborg's  views,  I  shall  be  hap]3y  to  enter  into  the 
discussion.  It  is  a  topic^which  the  receivers  of  his  system  have  no  deshe  to  evade. 

As  this,  then,  cannot  justly  be  regarded  as  the  ground  of  a  valid  objection 
against  the  vision  in  debate,  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  pure  question  of  theology  to  be 
determined  independent  of  all  visions,  I  come  to  the  second  hypothesis,  which 
supposes  that  v/hether  his  view  of  justification  be  theologically  true  or  false,  yet 
we  have  no  sufficient  reasons  for  believing  that  his  Relations  on  this  head  de- 
scribe a  veritable  state  of  things  among  spirits  in  the  other  life.  This  doubtless 
sets  before  us  the  true  point  at  issue,  and  it  will  be  well  to  look  somewhat 
minutely  at  the  different  items  of  the  description  as  they  are  numbered  and  ar- 
ranged by  Swedenborg  himself. 

■  "1.  When  they  are  dead,  and  revive  as  to  their  spirit,  which  commonly  hap- 
pens on  the  thitd  day  after  the  heart  has  ceased  to  beat,  they  appear  to  them- 
selves in  a  body  like  that  which  they  had  before  in  the  world,  so  that  they  know 
no  otherwise  than  that  they  are  living  in  the  former  world ;  yet  they  are  not  in 
a  material  body,  but  in  a  spiritual  body,  this  appearing  to  their  senses,  which 

\  are  also  spiritual,  as  if  it  was  material,  although  it  is  not  so." — p.  64. 

This  is  his  uniform  teaching  as  to  the  state  of  men  immediately  after  death, 
and  I  should  be  gratified  to  know  in  what  respects,  and  for  what  reasons,  you 
conceive  the  fact  to  be  otherwise.  There  is  certainly  something  wliich  survives 
the  body,  and  goes  into  the  spiritual  world  at  death.  This  you  call  tke  man — the 
essential  person  who  is  said  to  die — for  you  say  expressly  in  your  work  that  you 
believe  "  the  mind  or  spirit  is  essentially  tlie  man — that  he  continues  to  exist  after 
the  death  of  the  body,  a  real  and  true  man,  in  the  full  possession  of  the  power  of 
perceiving  and  knowhig,  of  loving  and  hating,  enjoying  and  sufTering — and  that 
he  has  all  his  mental  powers  and  faculties,  as  a  rational  and  moral  being,  in  a 
higher  degree  of  activity  and  perfection  than  before."— (p.  116.)  If  then  t/ie  man 
thus  exists  after  death  as  "  a  real  and  true  man,"  he  must  exist  as  a  substance,  and 
if  so,  in  a  form,  for  I  will  venture  to  say  that  you  cannot  conceive  anythuig  more 
impossible  than  that  a  substance  can  exist  without  a  form.*    I  do  not  say  that  tliis 


*  "  It  is  known,  in  the  learned  world,  that  essence  without  form,  and  form  without 
essence,  is  not  anything ;  for  essence  has  no  quality  except  from  form,  nor  is  form  any 


^j^cit^y  c4i  ^^^^ 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


97 


is  instantaneously  perceived,  but  I  am  confident  the  experiment  will  satisfy  any 
one  of  its  truth.    Nothing  alone  is  without  form.    Now  if  a  man  passes  into  the 
other  world  in  a  form,  what  shall  we  suppose  that  form  to  be  ?    Even  if  we  allow 
some  contingency  in  the  case,  are  not  the  chances  for  its  being  in  the  human 
form  as  great  as  those  for  its  being  in  any  other?*    Is  there  not  something  too  in 
the  fact,  that  we  instinctively  think  of  our  departed  friends  and  children  as  re- 
taining in  heaven  the  form  which  they  wore  on  earth  ?   Is  this  a  mere  prejudice 
resting  on  no  adequate  basis.'    Is  it  not  rather  the  effect  of  a  general  influx  of 
truth  into  the  minds  of  men But  let  us  essay  to  advance  a  little  closer  to  the 
core  of  the  question.    It  is  certain  that  the  intellectual  and  voluntary  principlefe^ 
in  man  does  not  act  upon  the  grosser  organism  of  the  body  but  through  a  me-Ul 
dium,  which  may  perhaps  be  most  properly  termed  the  psychical  element,  or  thaty< 
principle  which  is  the  grand  agent  in  sensation  and  which  has  peculiar  relation^ 
to  tiie  nervous  economy.    This  principle  lives  in  and  pervades  the  entire  crasser^ 
structure  of  the  body,  and  to  this  I  think  Swedenborg  alludes  under  the  denomi-' 
nation  "  spirit,"  which  in  this  connection  is  doubtless  the  spiritxud  body,  in  the 
following  passage ;  "  As  to  what  concerns  the  spirit  of  man,  that  also  is  created 
from  finite  things.    What  is  the  spirit  of  man,  but  a  receptacle  of  the  life  of  the 
mind     The  finite  things  from  which  that  is,  are  the  spiritual  substances  which 
are  in  the  spiritual  world,  and  are  also  brought  together  in  our  earth,  and  therein 
concealed." — (T.  C.  R.  470.)   These  spiritual  or  psychical  substances  pervading 
the  body  are,  according  to  him,  so  closely  related  to  the  inner  and  essential 
man,  that  they  go  with  him  into  the  other  world,  forming  the  body  which  he  ^ 
then  inhabits,  and  of  which  Swedenborg  thus  speaks ; 

"  Man  rises  again  immediately  after  (Jeath,  and  then  appears  to  himself  in  the 
body  altogether  as  in  the  world,  with  such  a  face,  with  such  members,  arms, 
hands,  feet,  breast,  belly,  loins ;  yea  also  when  he  sees  himself  and  touches  him- 
self, he  says  that  he  is  a  man  in  the  world :  nevertheless  it  is  not  his  external, 
which  he  carried  about  in  the  world,  that  he  sees  and  touches,  but  it  is  the  in- 
ternal, which  constitutes  that  very  human  which  lives,  and  which  had  an  exter- 
nal about  itself  or  out  of  the  single  things  of  itself,  whereby  it  could  be  in  the 
world,  and  act  suitably  there  and  perform  its  functions ;  the  earthly  corporeal  is 
no  longer  of  any  use  to  it,  it  being  in  another  world  where  are  otlier  functions, 
and  other  powers  and  abilities,  to  which  its  body,  such  as  it  has  there,  is  adapt- 
ed :  this  body  it  sees  with  its  eyes,  not  those  which  it  had  in  the  world,  but  those 
which  it  has  there,  which  are  the  eyes  of  its  internal  man,  and  out  of  which 
through  the  eyes  of  the  body  it  had  before  seen  worldly  and  terrestrial  things: 
it  also  feels  it  with  the  touch,  not  with  the  hands  or  sense  of  touch  which  it  en- 
joyed in  the  world,  but  with  the  hands  and  sense  of  touch  which  it  there  enjoys, 
which  is  that  from  which  its  sense  of  touch  in  the  world  existed  :  every  sense 
also  is  there  more  exquisite  and  more  perfect,  because  it  is  the  sense  of  the  inter- 
nal of  man  set  loose  from  the  external,  for  the  internal  is  in  a  more  perfect  state, 
inasmuch  as  it  gives  to  the  external  the  power  of  sensation,  but  when  it  acts  into 
the  external,  as  ui  the  world,  then  the  sensation  is  rendered  dull  and  obscure ; 


subsisting  entity,  except  from  essence  ;  consequenly,  there  is  not  any  predication  con- 
cerning either  when  separated  from  the  other." — T.  C.  R.  367. 

•  "  The  soul  is  a  human  form,  from  which  nothing  at  all  can  be  taken  away,  and  to 
which  nothing  at  all  can  be  added;  and  it  is  the  inmost  form  of  all  the  forms  of  the 
body ;  and  because  the  forms  which  are  without  receive  from  tlie  inmost  both  essence 
and  form,  therefore  you  are,  as  you  appear  to  yourselves  and  to  us,  souls.  In  a  word 
the  soul  is  the  man  himself,  because  it  is  the  inmost  man  ;  wherefore  its  form  is  fully 
and  perfectly  the  human  form  ;  nevertheless  it  is  not  life,  but  it  is  the  proximate  recep- 
tacle of  Lfe  from  God,  and  thus  the  habitation  of  God." — T.  C.  R.  697. 
7 


98 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


moreover  it  is  the  internal  which  is  sensible  of  the  internal,  and  the  external 
which  is  sensible  of  the  external ;  hence  it  is  that  men  after  death  see  each  other, 
and  are  in  society  together  according  to  the  interiors  ;  that  I  might  be  certain  as 
to  these  things,  it  has  also  been  given  me  to  touch  spirits  themselves,  and  to 
speak  frequently  with  them  on  this  subject." — A.  C.  5078. 

Now  this  body,  Swedenborg  teaches,  man  takes  with  him  into  the  other  life 
from  tlie  natural  body.    It  was  in  it  while  he  lived,  and  it  ia>  eUminaJed^out  of  it 
when  he  dies.    You  may  indeed  ask  the  evidence  of  all  this,  and  I  wUl  ask  the 
evidence  on  which  you  believe  anything  contrary  to  it.    I  maintain  that  it  is  the 
nearest  approximation  which  the  human  mmd  can  make  to  a  rational  conception 
of  the  subject  and  agrees  better  with  the  ascertained  facts  of  our  psychological 
nature.    It  is,  on  this  ground,  quite  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  separation  of 
the  psychical  from  the  corporeal  element  should  be  somewhat  slow  and  gradual, 
and  the  space  of  three  days  may,  as  a  general  fact,  be  no  less  than  the  time  requi- 
site for  the  complete  dislodgment.    The  i^heii^memi  of  susjien^^^    animation,  in 
:'j;ases  of  drowning,  strangling,  &c.  dearly  prove  that  life  is  often  by  no  means 
,-vwholly  extinct,  even  when  all  outward  signs  of  it  have  disappeared.    Nor,  if  this 
Wiew  be  admitted,  am  I  able  to  see  why  it  should  not  be,  to  the  emancipated  spir- 
it, the  most  natural  of  all  impressions,  that  it  is  still  in  possession  of  a  body.  It 
has  still  a  vehicle  which  serves  it  as  a  medium  of  action.    Though  it  has  thrown 
off  an  outer  garment,  it  still  retains  an  inner.    Though  "  unclothed"  of  its  grosser 
covering,  it  is  yet  "  clothed  upon"  of  its  finer  and  more  ethereal.    Why  should 
it  not  be,  to  the  spirit's  consciousness,  as  if  it  still  abode  in  its  earthly  tabernacle 
What  else,  at  first,  can  it  think .'   How  else  can  it  feel  ?    Where  then  lies  the 
valid  objection  against  the  first  item  of  the  description  .'   I  proceed  to  the  sec- 
,  ond. 

"2.  After  some  days  they  see  that  they  are  in  a  world  where  there  are  vari- 
ous societies  instituted,  which  world  is  called  the  M-orld  of  spirits,  and  is  inter- 
mediate between  heaven  and  hell.  All  the  societies,  which  are  innumerable,  are 
wonderfully  arranged  according  to  natural  affections  ;  the  societies  arranged  ac- 
cording to  good  natural  affections  communicate  with  heaven,  and  the  societies 
arranged  according  to  evil  affections,  communicate  with  hell." — p.  65. 

The  intimation  of  social  arrangements  in  the  world  of  spirits  contains  in  it,  I 
think,  nothing  abhorrent  to  our  best  ideas  of  the  state  of  things  awaiting  a  being 
like  man,  nor  is  it  at  all  inconsistent  with  what  you  have  professed  as  your  own 
belief.  "  We  have  believed  that  the  spirits  of  men  in  another  world,  even  be- 
fore the  resurrection  of  the  body,  are  not  only  capable  of  intercourse  with  the  infi- 
nite Spirit,  but  of  communicating  their  thoughts  and  feelings  to  one  another,  and 
that  far  more  perfectly  than  was  ever  done  by  means  of  bodily  organs  in  the  pres- 
ent life."  (p.  116).  If  there  is  intercourse  in  that  world,  there  is  doubtless  society, 
and  from  society  to  societies  the  ideal  transition  is  by  no  means  violent.  Nor  can 
it  be  said  that  there  is  anything  incredible  in  these  societies  being  arranged  accord- 
ing to  the  natural  affections  of  Ihose  who  compose  them,  or  that  those  societies 
which  are  governed  by  good  affections  should  communicate  with  heaven  and 
those  of  an  opposite  character  with  hell.  That  this  however  should  be  "  an  in- 
termediate world  between  heaven  and  hell,"  you  may  have  more  difficulty  in  ap- 
prehending. Upon  this  1  cannot  at  present  expatiate,  but  if  you  will  refer  to  Swe- 
denborg's  chapter  on  this  subject  in  his  treatise  on  "  Heaven  and  Hell"  and  give 
due  weight  to  the  fact  that  men  usually  die  possessed  of  mixed  characters,  and 


.yCCo  Ot^O  <^oC  ~J~) 


7^  -v  J 


{ 


REPLY  TO  DR  WOODS. 


99 


to  the  violence  of  the  supposition  that  the  simple  act  of  dying  should  effect  a 
miraculous  separation  of  the  elements  of  moral  character,  while  yet  all  must  event- 
ually be  fixed  in  a  state  of  happiness  or  misery,  I  imagine  you  will  come  to  the 
Conclusion  that  this  point  is  intrinsically  no  more  staggering  than  either  of  the 
others. 

"  3.  The  novitiate  spirit — is  introduced  into  various  societies,  both  good  and 
evil,  and  examination  is  made  whether  he  is  affected  by  truths,  and  in  what 
manner ;  and  whether,  and  in  what  manner,  he  is  affected  by  falses,"* — f.  65. 

This  is  merely  the  first  step  of  the  process  by  which  every  one  is  gradually 
arranged  into  his  appropriate  society.  This  is  done  by  applying  a  moral  touch- 
stone to  the  character. 

"4.  If  he  is  affected  by  truths,  he  is  withdrawn  from  evil  societies,  and  intro- 
duced into  good  societies,  and  also  into  various  ones,  until  he  comes  into  a  so- 
ciety corresponding  with  his  own  natural  affection,  where  he  enjoys  the  good 
corresponding  with  that  affection ;  and  this  mitil  he  has  put  off  his  natural  affec- 
tion and  has  put  on  a  spiritual  affection,  and  then  he  is  elevated  into  heaven ; 
but  this  takes  place  with  those  who  in  the  world  have  lived  a  life  of  charity."t — 
p.  65. 

This  completes  the  process.  His  association  is  according  to  his  predominant 
spiritual  sympathies.  No  force  is  put  forth  to  control  his  destiny.  Everything 
is  so  ordered  as  to  preserve  his  liberty  of  choice  ijitacf7and  he  gravitates  freely 
to  his  proper  centre.  Is  there  anything  in  this  at  which  the  reason  of  a  saint 
can  revolt  > 

"  5.  But  they  who  have  confirmed  themselves  in  doctrine  and  life  in  faith 
alone  luito  justification,  by  reason  of  their  not  being  affected  by  truths,  but  by 
falses,  and  because  they  have  rejected  the  goods  of  charity — are  withdrawn  from 
good  societies,  and  introditced  into  evil  societies,  and  also  into  various  ones,  un- 
til they  come  uito  the  society  which  corresponds  to  the  concupiscences  of  their 
love."t—p.  65. 

The  only  question  here  to  be  raised  is  as  to  the  fact  of  confirmation  in  doc- 
trine and  life  in  faith  alone  necessarily  supposing  a  rejection  of  the  goods  of 
charity  and  a  rooting  of  the  affection  of  falses  instead  of  truths.  If  such  is  the 
real  internal  character  accompanying  this  belief,  then  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the 

*  I  find  upon  recurrence  to  the  volume  from  which  this  is  taken  that  a  clause  is  omitted 
for  which  I  am  unable  to  account.  It  there  reads  thus ; — "  The  novitiate  spirit,  or  the 
spiritual  man,  is  conducted,  &c."  So  slight  an  addition  could  not  materially  have  pro- 
longed the  extract,  and  thus  encumbered  the  page,  so  that  I  am  forced  to  ask  whether 
there  were  not  some  design  in  the  suppression  not  exactly  worthy  of  a  fair  spirit  of 
controversy. 

t  Here  again  I  find  a  clause  suppressed  which  I  am  compelled  to  say  has  a  suspicious 
air.  The  whole  sentence  in  the  A.  R.  reads  thus; — "But  this  takes  place  with  those 
who  in  the  world  have  lived  a  life  of  charity,  and  thus  also  a  life  of  faith,  which  consists 
in  believing  in  the  Lord,  and  shunning  evils  as  sins."  Now  if  the  addition  of  this  clause 
does  not  affect  the  tenor  of  the  whole  paragraph,  I  can  see  no  reason  for  not  inserting  it. 
If  it  does,  a  very  serious  question  arises  as  to  the  motives  of  the  omission.  I  confess  it 
has  vastly  the  appearance,  of  a  desire  to  keep  out  of  view  Swedenborg's  asserted  con- 
nection between  faith  and  charity,  that  is,  faith  and  life.'T^.' 

i  Again  another  unaccountable  suppression.  'VJTiy  could  we  not  have  had  the  sen- 
tence complete  ; — "  And  because  they  have  rejected  the  goods  of  charity,  which  are  good 
works,  from  the  means  of  salvation,  are  withdrawn,  &c."  So  also  at  the  close  of  the  ex- 
tract— "for  he  who  loves  falses,  cannot  but  love  evils."  Considering  the  brevity  of  these 
clauses  the  inference  seems  inevitable,  that  they  convey  a  shade  of  meaning  which 
would  look  too  much  in  favor  of  the  sentiments  expressed  to  allow  of  their  coming  be- 
fore the  reader.  If,  however,  any  other  motive  can  be  assigned,  I  shall  be  happy  to 
accept  the  explanation. 


100 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


withdrawment  from  good  societies  and  the  introduction  to  evil,  follows  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course.  But  Swedenborg  shows  that  it  is  the  very  essence  of  this  doctrine, 
in  its  practical  working,  to  found  the  hope  of  acceptance  and  salvation,  not  upon 
an  inward  subjective  principle  of  good,  but  upon  an  outward  ohjectivt  righteous- 
ness  v^Tought  by  Christ,  received  by  faith,  and  accounted  to  the  believer  by  im- 
putation. This  view  of  the  nature  of  justification  he  says  does  not  necessarily 
militate  with  a  man's  remamingin  his  dominant  worldly  love,  and  consequently 
must  leave  him,  in  the  other  life,  liable  to  "  come  into  that  society  which  corres- 
ponds to  the  concupiscences  of  his  love."  All  this  you  may  deny  as  a  matter  of 
theology,  but  you  cannot  deny  it  as  a  vision,  unless  you  first  show  it  to  be  dog- 
matically false.  How  much  of  truth  and  sound  reasoning  you  may  see  in  what 
follows,  I  know  not;  but  I  tliink  it  will  be  much  easier  to  dissent  from  it  than  to 
disprove  it. 

"  From  what  has  been  adduced  let  it  be  well  considered,  whether  to  have  faith 
be  anything  else  than  to  live  according  to  it ;  and  whether  to  live  according  to 
it,  be  not  only  to  know  and  to  think,  but  also  to  will  and  to  do ;  for  faith  is  not^n 
man  whilst  it  is  only  in  his  knowledge  and  thought,  but  when  it  is  also  in  his 
will  and  in  his  actions.  Faith  in  man  is  faith  of  the  life,  but  faith  not  yet  in  man 
is  faith  of  the  memory  and  of  the  thought  thence  derived.  By  faith  of  the  life  is 
understood  believing  in  God,  but  to  believe  those  things  Avhich  are  from  God, 
and  not  to  believe  in  God,  is  mere  historical  faith,  which  is  not  saving.  Who 
that  is  a  true  priest  and  good  pastor,  does  not  desire  that  men  may  live  well : 
and  who  does  not  know  that  the  faith  of  knowledges,  obtained  from  hearsay, 
ris  not  the  faith  of  the  life,  but  historical  faith  Faith  of  the  life  is  the  faith  of 
\charity,  for  charity  is  life.  But  although  the  case  is  thus  clear,  yet  1  foresee, 
that  they  who  have  confirmed  themselves  in  the  doctrine  of  faith  alone  and  jus- 
tification thereby,  will  not  recede  from  it  by  reason  of  their  connecting  falsities 
"with  truths ;  for  they  teach  truths  when  they  teach  from  the  Word,  but  they 
teach  falsities  when  they  teach  from  doctrine;  and  hence  they  confound  those 
things,  by  saying,  that  the  fruits  of  faith  are  the  good  of  life,  and  that  these 
follow  from  faith,  and  yet  that  the  goods  of  life  contribute  nothing  to  salvation, 
but  faith  alone.  Thus  do  they  conjoin  and  separate ;  and  when  they  conjoin 
they  teach  truths,  but  only  before  the  })eople,  who  do  not  know  that  they  so 
invert,  and  say  these  things  from  necessity,  in  order  that  their  doctrine  may 
cohere  with  the  Word ;  but  when  they  separate,  they  teach  falsities,  for  they  say 
that  faith  saves,  and  not  the  goods  of  charity  which  are  works,  in  this  case  not 
knowing  that  charity  and  faith  act  as  one,  and  that  charity  consists  in  acting  well 
and  faith  in  believing  well,  and  that  to  believe  well  without  acting  well  is  im- 
possible; thus  that  there  can  be  no  faitli  without  charity,  and  that  charity  is  th« 
esse  of  faith  and  its  soul,  hence  that  faith  alone  is  faith  without  a  soul,  and  thus 
a.  dead  faith ;  and  inasmuch  as  such  faith  is  not  faith,  hence  justification  thereby 
is  a  mere  non-entity." — A.  E.  250. 

The  drift  of  this  extract  it  will  be  important  to  bear  in  mind  in  order  to  a  jnst 
judgment  of  what  follows. 

"  6.  But  as  in  the  world  they  had  feigned  good  affections  in  externals,  althongh 
in  their  internals  there  was  nothing  but  evil  affections — they  are  at  first  kept  by 
turns  in  externals ;  and  they  who  in  the  world  presided  over  companies  of  men, 
are  here  and  there  set  over  societies  in  the  world  of  spirits,  in  general  or  in  part 
according  to  the — importance  of  the  offices  they  had  formerly  exercised;  but  as 
they  neither  love  truth  nor  justice, — therefore  after  some  days  they  arc  disiiiissed. 
I  have  seen  such  removed  from  one  society  to  another,  and  .some  admuiistration 
given  them  in  each,  but  only  to  be  as  quickly — dismissed.'" — p.  66. 


•  Is  it  possible  thai  mere  economy  of  space  could  h  ive  iliuMRil  ilic  exclusion  of  the 
words  and  phrases  which  I  have  put  in  Italics  ; — "  are  sot  over  societies  in  the  world  of 
spirits,  in  general  or  in  part  according  to  the  extent  and  importance  of  the  olliccs,  &c." 
"  But  as  they  neither  Inve  truth  nor  justice,  ncr  are  capable  of  biing  illuminated  to  at  to 

— 


/.  Sid' 


0 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  101 

What  is  here  affirmed  follows  naturally,  and  I  may  say  necessarily,  from  what 
precedes  as  to  tlie  internal  state  of  those  who  are  simply  in  faith  without  being 
at  the  same  time  in  charity.  What  is  said  of  their  exercising  temporary  dominiou 
flows  from  the  general  principle  elsewhere  asserted  and  largely  dwelt  upon, 
that  a  man's  ruling  love  follows  him  to  the  other  life,  and  that  it  then  comes  into 
corresponding  manifestations,  just  as  the  tenant  in  the  madhouse  holds  on  m 
the  dream  of  royalty,  when  his  kingdom  is  commensurate  with  the  walls  of  his 
cell,  and  he  wields  a  straw  for  his  sceptre, 

"  7.  After  frequent  dismissals,— they  are  next  led  away  into  a  deserl,  where 
there  are  cottages,  into  which  they  enter,  and  work  of  some  kind  is  given  them 
—and  as  they  do  it,  they  receive  food,  and  if  they  do  not  do  it,  they  are  hungry 
— so  that  at  length  necessity  compels  them.  •  Food  there  is  similar  to  the 
food  in  this  world,  but  it  is  from  a  spiritual  origin,  and  is  given  from  heaven— 
to  all  according  to  the  uses  they  perform;  to  the  idle  nothing  is  given,  because 
they  are  useless." — f.  66. 

"  8.  After  a  time  they  loathe  work,  and  then  they  go  out  of  the  cottages ;  and 
if  they  have  been  priests,  they  have  an  inclination  to  build ;  and  there  appear 
then  immediately  heaps  of  hewn  stones,  bricks,  rafters,  and  boards,  also  heaps 
of  reeds  and  bulrushes,  clay,  lime,  and  bitumen,  which,  when  they  see,  the  lust 
of  building  is  kindled,  and  they  begin  to  construct  a  house,  taking  now  a  stone, 
and  then  wood,  now  a  reed,  and  then  clay,  and  placing  them  irregularly,  one 
upon  another,  but  in  order  as  it  seems  to  themsel\'es ;  but  what  they  build  by 
day  falls  down  by  night ;  and  the  next  day  they  gather  materials  from  among  the 
rubbish,  and  build  again,  and  this  they  continue  to  do,  until  they  are  tired  of 
building.  From  this  cause  it  is,  they  collect  together  falses  to  confirm  salvation 
by  faith  alone ,  and  such  falses  cannot  serve  to  build  up  a  church  in  any  other 
manner." — f.  66. 

The  fundamental  doctrine  of  correspondences  is  essential  to  the  right  under- 
standing of  what  is  here  said  of  the  occupation  of  the  spirits  described  in  the 
other  life.  From  the  very  fact  that  they  are  spirits  in  a  spiritual  world,  the  ob- 
jects and  the  scenery  around  must  be  of  the  same  nature.  But  these  visual 
sceneries  will  be  necessarily  in  accordance  with  the  dominant  states  of  life  grow- 
ing out  of  the  affections,  thoughts,  uiterests,  and  pursuits,  which  went  to  form 
those  states  while  they  lived  on  earth.  If  they  were  then  in  reality  busied  in  build- 
ing up  a  fallacious  system  of  doctrine,  as  that  of  faith  alone  undoubtedly  is,  no- 
thing could  more  strikingly  represent  the  internal  prompting  by  which  they 
were  actuated  than  the  spiritual  correspondence  here  set  before  us.  They  con- 
tinue to  do  in  the  other  world  what  they  mainly  did  in  this,  allowmg  for  the  ne- 
cessary difference  of  condition  in  a  natural  and  a  spiritual  sphere  of  existence. 
And  how,  I  ask,  could  the  pertinency  of  Paul's  illustration  be  more  forcibly  dis> 
played  than  by  the  very  scenery  here  depicted "  If  any  man  build  upon  this 
foundation  gold,  silver,  precious  stones,  wood,  hay,  stubble;  every  man's  work 
shall  be  made  manifest."  Here  certainly  are  very  similar  materials  employed  in 
a  very  similar  kind  of  building,  and  what  is  there  irrational  or  absurd  in  suppos- 
ing that  by  the  laws  of  mental  action  in  the  other  world — and  this  is  the  only  ac  - 
tion  that  can  there  have  place— the  very  representative  phenomena  here  set  forth 

know  what  truth  and  justice  are  in  themselves,  therefore,  &c."  "  But  only  to  be  as  quickljr 
and  rapidly  dismissed."  Similar  omissions  occur  in  the  remaining  extracts,  and 
though  they  are  in  all  cases  indicated  by  a  dash,  they  would  scarcely  be  suspected  by 
the  ordinary  reader.  Still  1  do  not  regard  them,  for  the  most  part,  as  materially  affect- 
ing the  sense  of  the  context,  nor  do  I  feel  at  liberty  to  consider  them  as  beyond  the  reach 
of  »  satisfactory  explanation.    I  only  speak  of  them  as  singular. 


102 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


shall  occur  ?  I  of  course  admit  that  the  fact  of  the  alleged  phenomena  in  regard 
to  the  particular  class  of  spirits  alluded  to,  depends  upon  the  truth  of  the  teach- 
ings respecting  the  doctrine  in  question,  and  this  is  to  be  judged  of  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  all  visionary  representation.    You  cannot  justly  feel  yourself  at  liberty 
to  impugn  the  tenet  on  the  ground  of  the  vision,  nor  do  I  see  that  you  can  deny 
that  if  the  tenet  is  true,  the  vision  may  be  real.   At  any  rate,  this  is  to  be  deter- 
mined by  the  soundness  or  sophistry  of  the  radical  principles  on  -which  this 
whole  matter  of  representative  scenery  in  the  other  life  rests.   In  the  determi- 
nation of  this  question  the  deepest  laws  of  our  psychological  being  aie  involved. 
^Ve  have  to  meet  face  to  face  the  problem  of  spiritual  perception.    Do  spirits  be- 
jhold  objects  in  the  spiritual  world  ?  If  so,  what  are  they  .'  Material  things  are  ex- 
•^cluded  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case.    Can  you  conceive  that  those  objects  shall 
'be  any  other  than  spiritual,  and  if  so,  must  they  not  be  mental  creations  ?  But 
will  not  mental  creations  be  shaped  and  moulded  by  the  interior  states  of  the 
minds  from  which  they  flow  ?  And  is  not  this  correspondence     And  is  not  the  law 
-  i?of  correspondence  the  central  theme  of  Swedenborg's  disclosures How  then  can 
[it  be  imagined  for  a  moment,  that  a  system  developing  this  magnificent  law  is 
\to  be  turned  firom  with  a  smile  of  mingled  pity  and  contempt  as  the  dream  of  a 
/(mystic .'   What  approach  to  justice  is  to  be  recognized  in  the  attempt  to  deal 
vwith  the  visions,  while  no  regard  is  had  to  the  philosophical  basis  on  which 
Uthey  are  built? 

And  may  I  now  be  permitted  to  ask  whether  your  exhibition  of  this  particular 
feature  of  the  Relations  can  justly  be  deemed  a  valid  impeachment  of  its  cred- 
ibihty  .'  You  have  avowed  the  piu-pose  of  looking  directly  at  the  nature  of  the 
alleged  communications.  Do  you  find  anything  in  the  Tuiture  of  the  present 
which  is  inconsistent  with  the  fundamental  law  of  the  whole,  and  do  you  find 
anything  in  that  law  inconsistent  with  the  deductions  of  reason  or  the  inform- 
ations of  holy  writ  ? 

The  remarks  which  I  have  ventured  to  offer  on  the  vision  now  considered  ap- 
ply, in  their  general  scope,  to  all  the  rest.  In  presenting  these  visions  to  your 
readers  you  have  avoided  the  least  reference  to  the  laws  of  psychology  on  which 
they  are  professedly  founded.  Your  exhibit  of  the  details  is,  therefore,  at  once 
partial  and  distorted.  The  reader  is  furnished  with  no  clew  to  guide  him  to  the 
fundamental  law — with  no  hints  that  can  operate  to  prevent  his  regardmg  them 
as  the  height  of  absurdity  and  madness.  And  so  far  as  the  relations  are  intend- 
ed to  set  forth  the  falsities  of  certain  doctrines  generally  received  in  the  Chris- 
tian church,  whether  that  of  the  Trinity,  Justification,  Atonement,  or  Regen- 
eration, you  do  not  condescend  to  argue  these  points  on  their  o\sna.  merits,  but 
taking  for  granted  the  truth  of  the  prevalent  constructions,  you  hold  up  the  vi- 
sions in  an  odious  light,  because  their  scope  seems  to  contravene  the  purport  of 


»  This  is  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  explanation  of  Ex.  xxii.  1,  "  If  in  digging  a  thief  be 
caught,"  &c.  which  signifies,  he  says,  in  the  internal  sense,  the  taking  away  of  good  and 
truth.  That  digging  througha  house  denotes  to  take  away  the  good  of  another  in  secret, 
derives  its  origin  from  representations  in  another  life.  In  that  life,  when  the  angels  "are 
discoursing  concerning  the  false  destroying  the  good  in  secret,  it  is  represented  below, 
where  the  angelic  discourse  is  exhibited  to  the  sight,  by  the  digging  through  ^  wall,  and 
on  the  other  hand,  when  the  angelic  discourse  is  concerning  truth  acceding  to  good  con- 
joining itself  to  it,  it  is  represented  by  an  open  door,  through  which  there  is  entrance." 
— A.  C.  9126.  This  throws  additional  light  upon  what  we  have  previously  said  ol  the 
philosophy  of  the  spiritual  sense. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


103 


the  popular  creeds;  whereas  if  the  doctrinal  positions  are  sound,  the  visions 
assume  at  once  an  entirely  new  phasis.  They  can  then  be  met  only  on  the 
third  ground  above  assumed,  viz.  that  the  fact  of  their  being  enjoyed  at  all  is 
intrinsically  incredible— a  point  which  now  comes  to  be  considered,  as  the  se- 
cond has  been  already  replied  to  in  what  I  have  said  above. 

The  paramount  claim  asserted  in  behalf  of  Swedonborg  is  that  of  the  opening 
of  his  spiritual  senses,  in  consequence  of  which  he  was  favored  with  \he  privi- 
lege of  converse  with  the  spiritual  world,  and  made  supernaturally  cognizant  of 
its  facts,  phenomena,  and  laws.  The  credibility  of  such  a  state  must  first  be 
tried  by  the  test  of  its  possibility.  On  this  point,  however,  I  cannot  deem  it  need- 
ful to  enlarge,  as  I  do  not  know  that  a  question  has  ever  been  raised  upon  it. 
It  is,  I  believe,  by  universal  consent  admitted,  that  such  a  translation  of  thej 
spirit  as  Swedenborg  alleges  of  himself  is  intrinsically  possible.  At  any  rate,  it| 
cannot  well  be  denied  by  those  who  concede  the  truth  of  the  prophetic  ecstasy, 
or  the  occasional  rapture  of  the  souls  of  holy  men  whose  earthly  experience, 
particularly  upoji  the  death-beds,  has  antedated  celestial  joys.  Is  there  any- 
thing, for  instance,  in  the  statement  that  follows  to  which  a  beUever  in  the  Bible 
can  reasonably  object  as  intrinsically  incredible  or  absurd 

"  When  man  is  in  this  state  ( in  the  spirit),  the  things  which  exist  in  the  spiritual 
world  appear  to  him  as  clearly  as  the  objects  in  the  natural  world;  but  the  ob- 
jects then  seen  by  him,  because  they  are  from  a  spiritual  origin,  are  in  fhem- 
selves  spiritual,  and  sncli  things  as  are  of  celestial  wisdom  are  presented  to  him 
as  it  were  in  natural  images.  Thus  divine  things  are  presented  in  visible  forms 
before  the  eyes  of  spirits  and  angels  ;  hence  it  is  that  all  things  which  are  seen 
in  heaven,  are  representatives  and  significatives,  as  were  also  the  things  seen  by 
John,  which  are  treated  of  in  the  Apocalypse.  Whilst  man  is  hi  the  body  he 
does  not  see  the  things  that  are  in  heaven,  unless  the  sight  of  his  spirit  is  opened 
but  when  this  sight  is  opened,  he  sees  them  ;  thus  John  saw  the  things  which 
are  described  in  the  Apocalypse,  and  in  like  manner  also  the  prophets  saw,  who 
are  therefore  called  SgersrS-nd  are  said  to  have  had  their  eyes  opened  ;  thus  also 
angels  were  seen  in  ancient  times,  and  thus  also  the  Lord  was  seen  by  the  dis- 
ciples after  his  resurrection.  This  sight  is  the  sight  of  the  spiritual  man ;  and 
because  in  such  case  all  things  seen  appear  representatively,  therefore  it  was 
opened  in  John.  He  who  does  not  know  anything  of  this  sight,  believes  that 
angels,  when  they  were  seen  by  men,  assumed  a  human  form,  and  that  when 
they  vanished  out  of  sight,  they  laid  it  aside ;  this,  however,  was  not  the  case, 
but  angels  then  appeared  in  their  own  form,  which  is  the  human  form,  not  be- 
fore the  sight  of  the  bodily  eyes,  but  before  the  sight  of  the  spirit,  which  sight 
was  then  opened :  this  is  evident  from  the  Lord  being  seen  by  the  disciples  after 
his  resurrection,  when  he  himself  showed  them  that  he  was  a  man  m  a  perfect^ 
human  form  ;  and  nevertheless  he  became  invisible  ;  for  when  they  saw  him, 
the  eyes  of  their  spirits  were  opened,  but  when  he  became  invisible  they  were 
closed.  That  man  has  such  a  sight,  is  manifest  to  me  from  much  experience, 
for  all  the  tilings  which  I  have  seen  in  the  heavens  were  seen  by  that  sight,  and 
on  those  occasions  I  was  in  a  like  state  of  wakefulness  as  when  they  were  not 
seen ;  but  that  sight  is  seldom  opened  to  any  one  by  the  Lord  at  this  day,  and 
that  for  many  reasons." — A.  E.  53. 

This  certainly  shows  the  fact  of  the  possibility  of  such  a  state  as  Swedenborg 
asserts  of  himself,  and  this  fact  I  regard  as  of  immense  importance  in  reference  to 
his  claim.  I  caimot  but  think  a  great  advance  is  made  towards  establishing  that 
claim  when  the  conviction  is  finnly  seated  in  the  mind,  that  his  assumption  on 
this  score  may  possibly  have  been  true.  It  is  gratifying  to  be  able  to  hold  this  posi- 
tion unchallenged,  that  what  is  intrinsically  possible  in  any  case  may  have  been 


104 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


true  ill  his  case.    This,  however,  is  a  question  of  evidence.    The  probability  of 
the  truth  of  his  claim  has  to  be  pronounced  upon,  and  the  judgment  formed  -will 
inevitably  be  governed  by  an  intelligent  estimate  of  the  reasons  which  may  be 
urged  in  its  support,  and  of  the  khul  of  testimcnij  by  which  it  shall  be  sustained. 
On  the  first  head,  or  that  of  the  reasons,  our  grand  appeal  is  to  the  asserted  fact  of 
the  Lord^  Second  Coming  at  the  time  and  in  the  manner  which  Swedenborg 
maintains.    As  this  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  whole  matter,  we  are  warranted 
to  demand  that  this  question  shall  first  of  all  be  considered,  and  the  esegetical^ 
error,  if  it  be  an  error,  which  we  have  embraced,  be  pointed  out.    ft  is  to  be 
shown  also  that  the  asserted  relation  between  the  Second  Advent  and  the  usher- 
ing in  of  that  grand  final  dispensation  termed  the  New  Jervsalem,  and  announced 
in  the  closing  chapters  of  the  Apocalypse,  is  a  fallacy.    Every  other  professed 
refutation  of  Swedenborg's  scheme  which  I  have  seen  is  as  barren  of  argument 
on  this  head  as  your  own.    They  seem  determined  to  assault  the  fabric  of  the  dis- 
closures at  every  point  but  the  right  one.    Not  the  slightest  impression,  however, 
can  ever  be  made  on  the  faith  of  Swedenborg's  advocates,  except  by  an  expo- 
sure of  the  falsity  of  their  views  on  this  cardinal  tenet  of  the  Lord's  Second  Com- 
ing.   The  very  attempt  at  such  an  e.xposure  is  still  in  futuro.    The  prevailing 
Church  seems  to  have  agreed,  by  common  consent,  to  waive  every  discussion 
which  involves  the  question  of  eschatology,  or  the  doctrine  of  the  consummation.  My 
own  belief  is  that  they  dare  not  touch  it,  from  a  certain  prophetic  intuition,  that 
as  they  do  not  know  precisely  what  the  Scriptures  mean  on  tliis  head,  the  dis- 
placement of  a  single  stone  would  be  followed  by  the  subversion  of  the  whole 
theological  edifice  which  ages  have  conspired  to  build  and  which  they  are  vir  \ 
tually  pledged  to  uphold.    If  by  any  possibility  it  should  appear,  that  the  Second 
'Advent  has  already  taken  place,  or  is  now  in  the  course  of  accomplishment, 
what  becomes  of  the  General  Judgment,  the  Resurrection,  and  the  End  of  the 
World,  all  which,  in  the  established  belief,  are  inseparably  linked  ^^^th  the  Ad- 
vent ?     They  must  necessarily  "  shoot  madly  from  their  spheres,"  and  the 
scheme  will  be  seen  to  break  up  like  the  dissolving  of  a  constellation  in  the  heav- 
ens, the  stars  bidding  farewell  to  each  other.    If,  however,  any  other  reason  can 
be  assigned  for  the  stern  refusal  to  consider  this  feature  of  our  system,  I  shall 
readily  withdraw  my  imputation.    As  the  subject  lies  before  our  own  minds,  we 
see  nothing  more  reasonable  or  probable,  than  that  the  occunence  of  such  a 
stupendous  event  as  the  Second  Advent  of  the  Lord  should  be  attended  with  the 
in-flowing  into  the  human  minfl  of  new  light  and  truth  from  heaven  relative  to 
the  spiritual  world — to  heaven  and  hell — and  to  the  nature  and  destiny  of  the 
human  soul.    The  grand  object  of  that  Advent  we  conceive  to  be,  to  pour  a  flood 
of  light  upon  the  connection  between  the  inner  and  the  outer  world ;  to  reinstate  re- 
generate man  in  the  lost  prerogatives  of  his  creation ;  and  we  see  no  mode  of  ac- 
complishing this  so  analogous  to  the  ordinary  procedures  of  the  Divine  Wisdom, 
as  to  select  and  endow  an  individual  for  the  purpose,  and  make  him  the  deposi- 
tory of  the  revelation  for  the  benefit  of  his  fellow-men.    In  this  then  we  perceive 
an  abundant  fulness  of  reasons  to  warrant  the  claim  which  he  makes. 

And  then  as  to  the  kind  of  evidenu  by  which  such  an  illumination  is  to  be  au- 
thenticated, we  know  not  what  to  ask  for  which  we  do  not  find.  We  cannot 
rely  upon  miracles,  for  your  own  reasoning  shows  that  whatever  might  be  the 
testimony  of  theit  truth,  they  would  not  be  beUeved  to  be  miracles,  but  would 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


be  explained  away  by  some  plausible  solution  on  the  score  of  juggling,  legerde- 
main, or  occult  arts.  After  citing  the  facts  mentioned  by  Kant  in  proof  of  Sweden- 
borg's  intercourse  with  the  spiritual  world,  and  his  supernatural  knowledge,  you 
say  ;— "  I  shall  not  undertake  to  search  out  the  hidden  causes  of  these  marvellous 
events.  The  means  of  doing  this  are  not  in  my  power.  But  what  then  We 
have  heard  stories  of  fortune  tellers,  jugglers,  and  dreamers,  and  persons  mag- 
netized, quite  as  unaccountable  and  astounding  as  these.  And  who  can  ac- 
count for  some  of  the  feats  of  insanity  Again  you  say,  that  you  would  not  un- 
dertake  to  disprove  the  authenticity  of  the  stories  related  of  Swedenborg,  and 
why Because,  forsooth,  in  all  ages  wizards  and  witches  have  said  and  done 
things  seemingly  preternatural  and  very  astonishing.  Now  as  a  somewhat  curi- 
ous specimen  of  the  different  manner  in  which  the  same  things  will  strike 
different  minds,  1  adduce  a  short  extract  from  a  very  elaborate  article  on  Swe- 
denborg in  the  Southern  Quarterly  Review  (Oct.  1846).  After  citing  in  full  the  re- 
lations to  which  you  allude,  the  writer  adds "  It  would  be  easy  to  multiply 
cases  equally  remarkable— but  these  will  suffice.  Such  testimony  would  be  ad- 
mitted, be  respected,  and  obtain  confidence  in  any  coiurt  in  Christendom.  Of 
what  does  it  consist Not  of  the  solitary  declaration  of  a  single  individual, 
whose  motives  might  be  suspected,  but  of  a  combination  of  concurring  testimo- 
nies from  different  quarters  and  different  persons,  of  the  highest  character,  so 
that  if  there  is  any  force  in  human  testimony  at  all,  we  have  just  as  much  author- 
ity for  believing  that  Swedenborg  had  intercourse  with  the  spiritual  world,  as 
we  have  for  believing  that  Victoria  is  the  present  reigning  Queen  of  Great 
Britain." 

I  ask  then,  my  dear  sir,  if  it  is  not  clear,  that  were  the  evidence  of  these  al- 
leged facts  increased  an  hundred  fold,  they  would  still  be  powerless  to  work,  in 
your  mind,  a  conviction  of  their  supernatural  character The  preconceived 
idea  that  the  age  of  miraculous  manifestations  is  past,  is  doubtless  so  rooted 
and  grounded  within  you,  that  all  testimony  to  the  contrary  would  be  unavailing, 
and  you  would  consider  it  to  be  your  duty  to  reject  it,  as  you  could  scarcely 
conceive  its  admission  in  any  other  light  than  as  derogatory  to  the  fulness  and 
sufficiency  of  the  Scriptural  revelation.  I  do  not  speak  of  this  as  by  any  means 
a  peculiarity  of  your  own  mind  above  that  of  other  men.  It  is  merely  the 
assertion  of  a  general  fact,  arising  from  the  operation  of  general  causes,  and 
producing  with  us  an  overwhelming  conviction,  that  the  evidence  of  miracles  in 
support  of  such  revelations  as  Swedenborg  has  given,  would  be  totally  inappo- 
site. We  see  therefore  the  superlative  wisdom  evinced  in  his  disclaimer  of 
miracles  as  the  guaranty  of  his  truth.  He  refers  directly  to  the  internal  evidence 
of  what  he  professes  to  make  known,  both  in  the  department  of  doctrine  and 
disclosure.  The  force  of  this  evidence,  however,  will  make  itself  felt  more  in 
regard  to  the  principles  than  to  the  details  of  the  system.  As  the  asserted  phe- 
nomena of  the  other  life  cannot  be  verified  by  experience  in  the  present  world, 
we  can  only  judge  of  them  by  their  accordance  with  what  we  are  able  to  ascertain 
of  the  deeper  psychological  laws  of  our  being,  and  by  their  moral  tendencies. 
If  there  is  nothing  in  these  respects  inconsistent  with  our  soundest  inductions  ;  if, 
on  the  other  hand,  they  are  seen  to  build  themselves  upon  a  truly  philosophical 
basis,  and  the  results  announced  flow  legitimately  from  the  principles  assumed, 
why  should  they  not  be  received  as  embodying  the  actual  verities  of  the  world 


106 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


unseen  ?  For  ourselves,  we  are  constrained  unanimously  to  say,  thatthe  dis- 
closures in  question  do  abide  the  most  rigid  ordeal  to  which  we  have  been  able 
to  submit  them.  From  the  most  thorough  and  careful  investigation  of  which  we 
are  capable,  we  have  attained  to  an  unwavering  assurance  in  our  own  minds 
that  Swedenborg's  developments  of  the  state  of  spirits  must  be  true,  because  they 
are  founded  on  a  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  spirits  which  we  believe  to  be  im- 
pregnably  sound.  If  this  evidence  is  not  decisive  with  others,  our  only  solution 
is,  that  they  have  not  weighed  the  data  as  we  have  ;  and  we  feel  at  liberty  to 
draw  this  inference,  inasmuch  as  our  opponents  do  not  meet  us  in  argument  on 
the  soundness  of  the  data,  but  on  the  absurdity  of  the  conclusion.  They  caimot 
see  how  it  is  possible  that  such  representations  as  they  find  in  Swedenborg's  vis- 
ions of  the  scenes  of  the  other  life  should  be  true.  But  do  they  knoiv  that  they 
are  not  true  ?  If  so,  it  can  only  be  by  knowing  that  the  laws  of  mind,  of  which 
they  are  the  result,  are  not  what  Swedenborg  and  all  his  adherents  afiirm  them 
to  be.  If  they  know  this,  why  do  they  not  make  known  their  knowledge  ? 
Why  not  expose  the  fallacy  of  our  fundamental  principles,  instead  of  holding  up  to 
ridicule  and  odium  what  may  be  termed  the  details  of  the  revelations  ?  These 
principles  are,  that  man  lives  after  the  death  of  the  body  "  a  real  and  true  man," 
as  you  have  yourself  expressed  it — that  as  the  body  is  necessarily  the  elaboration 
of  the  soul,  or  essential  principle,  of  the  man,  just  as  the  body  of  a  tree  is  the  pro- 
duct of  its  soul  or  organizing  life,  so  the  spiritual  man  is  of  the  same  form  with 
the  natural  or  corporeal  man — that  in  the  other  life  he  has  perceptive  and  sensi- 
tive powers  as  really  as  he  has  here — consequently  that  he  has  there  appropriate 
objects  of  perception  and  sensation — that  still  these  objects,  as  they  cannot  be 
material,  must  be  spiritual,  and  if  spiritual,  mental,  that  is  to  say,  they  must  be 
an  exterior  objective  development  of  all  those  thoughts,  feelings,  and  affections, 
which  are  stored  up  in  the  minds  of  spirits,  and  which  are  thus  adumbrated  in 
corresponding  forms  of  scenery,  whether  beautiful  and  splendid,  or  hideous  and 
revolting.  This  is  Swedenborg's  view  of  the  other  life,  and  the  question  is, 
'whether  it  is  psychologically  true  or  false  ?  If  the  fact  be  not  thus,  how  is  it 
What  theory  do  you  propose  of  the  phenomena  of  the  spirit- world  ?  You  cannot 
pronounce  it  false,  except  from  its  discrepancy  with  some  other  view  which  you 
believe  to  be  true,  or  more  true.  What  is  this  I  have  the  greatest  curiosity  to 
'know  what  is  the  counter-statement  which  you  have  to  offer  on  this  head. 
Have  you  any  >  I  suspect  not ;  and  the  only  reply  which  I  anticipate  is,  that 
we  neither  know,  nor  can  know,  anything  on  the  subject — that  it  is  sometliing 
wisely  reserved,  as  a  terra  incognita,  from  human  inteUigence — and  that  the  light 
of  that  world  alone  can  reveal  its  verities.  This,  I  am  satisfied,  is  all  that  can  be 
said  by  way  of  denial  and  offset  to  Swedenborg's  declarations.  And  yet  is  this 
validly  urged.'  The  knowledge  is  surely  possible,  if  God  sees  fit  to  grant  it.  It 
was  possible  to  Swedenborg,  provided  Infinite  Wisdom  was  pleased  to  make  him 
a  recipient  of  it.  It  is  possible  to  us,  if  it  was  possible  for  Swedenborg  to  impart 
it,  and  without  the  design  of  its  being  imparted  to  us,  we  cannot  well  conceive 
of  its  being  imparted  to  him.  We  are  therefore  perfectly  convinced  ourselves 
that  the  above  opinion  is  unfounded  ;  but  we  caimot  convince  others.  He  that 
is  wise  must  here  be  wise  for  himself.  We  can,  however,  enter  very  fully  into 
the  state  of  mind  which  judges  of  our  position.  We  can  easily  perceive  that  it 
is  a  secret  assurance  that  we  do  not  know  what  we  are  equally  assured  we  do 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


107 


know.  The  knowledge  of  our  opponents  pronounces  an  internal  judgment  on 
our  non-knowledge.  That  is  to  say,  they  profess  to  know  that  we  cannot  know 
certain  things  which  they  do  not  know  themselves — their  nescience  being  made 
to  nullify  our  science.  This  renders  the  case  very  similar  to  that  ixi  which  one 
man  has  an  inward  conviction  that  another  cannot  possibly  have  the  same  evi- 
dence of  the  truth  of  certain  doctrines  that  he  has  of  their  falsity,  and  who  conse- 
quendy  feels  constrained  to  doubt  of  the  other's  moral  state.  But  I  have  before 
ventured  to  say,  that  this  is  an  extremely  fallacious  ground  of  judgment,  inasmuch 
as  no  merely  intellectual  form  of  belief  is  an  infallible  criterion  of  moral  state ;  for  the 
Divine  Good,  the  only  principle  of  eternal  life,  may  flow  more  freely  into  the 
mental  falsities  of  one  man  than  into  the  truths  of  another.  "  The  truths  of 
faith,"  says  Swedenborg,  "  are  vessels  receptive  of  good,  and  they  receive  good 
in  proportion  as  man  recedes  from  evil ;  for  good  is  continually  flowing  in  from 
the  Lord,  but  it  is  the  evil  of  life  which  hinders  it  being  received  in  the  truths 
which  are  with  man,  in  his  memory  or  science ;  hence  as  far  as  man  recedes 
from  evil,  so  far  good  enters  and  applies  itself  into  his  truths ;  then  the  truth  of 
faith  becomes  with  him  the  good  of  faith.  Man  indeed  may  know  truth,  and  also 
make  confession  thereof  from  some  worldly  motive,  yea,  and  even  be  persuaded 
that  it  is  truth,  but  still  this  truth  does  not  live  in  him  so  long  as  he  is  in  the  life  of 
evil ;  for  such  a  man  is  like  a  tree  on  which  are  leaves  and  no  fruit,  and  that  truth 
is  lilie  light  in  which  is  no  heat,  as  is  the  case  in  winter,  when  nothing  grows ; 
but  when  heat  is  in  it,  then  it  is  like  light  in  the  time  of  spring,  when  all  things 
begin  to  vegetate."  Again,  "  That  truths,  which  are  in  themselves  truths,  Avith 
one  person  are  more  true,  with  another  less  true,  with  some  altogether  untrue, 
yea  false,  may  appear  from  almost  all  those -things  which  in  themselves  are 
true,  for  they  vary  with  the  man  with  whom  they  are,  according  to  his  af- 
fections." From  this  it  appears  that  but  little  is  to  be  made  of  the  most  confi- 
dent style  of  predication  as  to  points  of  mere  doctrinal  import,  when  their  relation 
to  life  is  overlooked. 

I  do  not  assume  the  entire  parallelism  of  the  two  cases,  but  I  hesitate  not  tofi 
affirm  that  it  is  as  incompetent  for  you  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  our  intellectual'/ 
state,  in  view  of  the  assent  we  yield  to  Swedenborg's  disclosures,  as  it  is  to  pro- J 
nounce  upon  owx  moral  state  in  view  of  the  faith  we  repose  in  his  doctrines. ' 
We  say  that  we  are  assured  of  their  truth  because  we  are  assured  of  the  truth  of 
the  principles  on  which  they  rest,  and  these  principles  appeal  to  our  intuitions 
and  inductions.    That  they  do  not  command  the  same  assent  with  you,  is  no 
.  adequate  evidence  that  the  process  of  conviction  in  our  minds  is  fallacious  and 
sophistical.   There  are  a  thousand  hidden  causes  that  moi^ld  the  form  and  go- 
vern the  law  of  mental  operations  on  a  subject  like  the  present,  and  one  mind 
cannot,  on  good  grounds,  ignore  the  results  which  another  reaches,  if  its  inqui- 
ries have  been  conducted  with  inteUigence,  caution  and  candor,  and  even  of  this 
it  must  be  its  own  judge.    Allow  me  then  to  say,  in  fine,  that  inasmuch  as  the 
abstract  possibility  of  Swedenborg's  revelations  is  not  denied — as  their  actuality 
is  to  be  established,  not  by  external,  but  by  internal,  evidence— as  this  evidence 
refers  itself  to  the  tribunal  of  reason  and  consciousness  bringing  to  the  test  the 
fundamental  principles  involved — and  as  our  reason  and  consciousness,  acting  by 
legitimate  rules,  assent  to  the  truth  of  these  principles— we  recognize  no  ade- 
quate grounds  for  the  position,  that  such  knowledge  of  the  facts  and  laws  of  the 


108 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


spiritual  world  as  Swedenborg  professes  to  communicate,  is,  in  the  present  life, 
unattainable.  Our  position,  therefore,  relative  to  Swedenborg's  revelations  of 
the  other  Avorld  is  afhrmative.  Yours,  in  relation  to  ours,  is  not  in  reality  even 
negative,  for  you  do  not  assume  that  it  is  false,  only  you  do  not  find  evidence 
that  it  is  true.  In  these  circumstances  it  can  scarcely  be  expected  that  our  pos- 
itive assent  should  be  at  all  weakened  by  the  force  of  arguments  which  at  best 
can  go  only  to  produce  a  demur  as  to  the  confidence  of  belief,  especially  when 
they  fall  so  far  short  of  touching  the  groundwork  of  our  conviction. 

Having  thus  presented  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  true  principles  on  which  I 
conceive  the  question  of  the  "  visions"  is  to  be  determined,  I  shall  forego  the  ex- 
amination of  the  various  specific  items  in  this  department  to  which  you  allude. 
The  remarks  which  hold  good  of  one  hold  good  of  all.  They  come  into  the  same 
category,  and  are  to  be  determined  by  the  same  rules. 

As  to  the  alleged  parallel  to  the  case  of  Swedenborg — parallel  in  kind,  though 
not  in  degree — which  you  have,  with  a  gravity  that  I  scarce  know  how  to  ac- 
count for,  brought  forward  from  the  cells  of  the  Lunatic  Asylum  at  Worcester, 
you  will  excuse  me  if  I  should  appear  somewhat  summary  in  my  disposal  of  it. 
Its  introduction  at  all  into  your  work  strilies  me  as  a  singular  procedure.  Had 
the  young  man  himself,  in  some  of  his  ecstatic  flights,  taken  it  into  his  head  to 
draw  such  a  parallel,  I  should  not  have  been  so  much  surprised  ;  but  to  find 
such  a  case  seriously  cited  by  yourself  as  in  any  mamier  or  measure  akui  to  that 
of  Swedenborg,  almost  moves  the  question,  whether  we  are  not  all  demented  to- 
gether, and  alike  "  walking  in  a  vain  show."  For  the  benefit  of  those  who  have 
not  seen  your  book  I  will  quote  a  few  sentences  from  these  illuminated  letters. 
The  reader  u-ill  then  be  better  able  to  judge  of  the  correctness  of  the  opinion, 
"  that  there  Avas  no  greater  difference  between  the  visions  of  the  two  men,  than 
there  was  between  their  previous  acquisitions  and  habits  of  mind." 

"  To  the  Trustees  of  the  Asylum. 

"  Gentlemen : — It  is  with  the  most  hearty  feelings  for  the  welfare  of  mankind 
that  I  take  my  pen  again  this  morning.  Permit  me  to  request  you  to  preserve 
carefully  all  of  my  writings.  I  do  not  write  as  I  once  did.  I  am  every  moment 
conscious  that  my  pen  is  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  I  know  that  what  I  write  is 
worthy  of  consideration,  because  it  is  not  myself  as  I  once  was  that  writes,  but 
God  who  uses  me  as  his  instrument.  And  I  am  willing  to  clothe  myself  with 
those  humble  feelings  that  David  had  when  he  met  Goliah. 

"  No  mortal  on  earth  is  able  to  appreciate  fully  my  views  and  feelings.  I  have 
been  taken  down  to  the  depths  of  hell — I  have  been  raised  to  the  sublimest 
heights  of  heaven;  and  now  I  am  lodged  again,  self-balanced,  and  in  perfect 
health,  on  this  orb,  our  earth,  where  I  expect,  to  spend  some  centuries  in  a  ca- 
pacity like  to  that  of  Howard  the  philanthropist,  only  more  glorious,  as  the  com- 
ing of  the  Son  of  Man  is  more  glorious  than  the  coming  of  La  Fayette,  or  any 
other  event  in  earth's  history.  Cheerfully  will  I  at  any  time  yield  my  title  to  him 
who  will  prove  himself  superior  to  myself.  Who  can  fail  to  see  how  the  ele- 
ments all  over  the  earth  are  working  with  me  in  this  glorious  enterprize.  Who 
is  it  that  withholds  the  snow  from  the  earth,  and  then  gives  it  at  tlie  appointed 
time,  unless  it  be  my  Father  who  hath  determined  to  put  the  government  upon 
my  shoulders,  as  I  am  convniced  from  the  wonderful  manner  he  hath  wrought 
with  me,  and  from  the  unexpected  ways  he  hath  communicated  knowledge  to 
me.  I  am  a  wonder  to  myself;  and  yet  so  long  have  I  been  filled  with  wonder 
that  1  have  familiarized  my  mind  to  it,  and  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  be  ac- 
tive in  my  high  calling.  Though  I  write  for  myself,  yet  my  testimony  is  true. 
Though  I  write  as  a  man,  yet  1  hesitate  not  to  say,  under  the  circumstances  in 
which  I  am  placed,  that  I  feel  like  a  God,  even  as  Jesus  did." — p.  102. 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


109 


"  Gentlemen : — ^It  is  my  duty  to  visit  each  of  the  States  of  our  Union  with  the 
least  possible  delay.  It  is  your  duty  to  further  tliis  project  by  giving  notice  in 
the  public  papers.  This  winter  and  coming  spring  would  be  a  favorable  time  to 
visit  the  southern  States.  God's  time  is  always  now.  Men  are  too  apt  to  wait 
for  useless  ceremony.  I  have  no  time  to  spend  in  idle  visiting  among  friends. 
Do  the  planets  stop  their  revolutions  while  men  sleep,  or  does  water  cease  to 
flow  .'  I  ought  to  address  large  bodies  of  people  in  all  our  States,  and  then  go 
to  Europe,  and  leave  the  press  to  follow  on  in  ray  wake,  or  in  other  people's 
wake,  just  as  it  pleases." — j).  104. 

"  Now  read,  if  you  please,  gentlemen,  the  45th  Psalm,  and  the  three  or  four 
exceedingly  sublime  Psalms  which  follow.  There  you  will  see  my  person  spo- 
ken of  very  particularly,  as  well  as  the  great  glory  of  the  church.  If  you  say 
can  this  be  so Then  I  assure  you  I  have  trampled  on  hell,  death,  the  grave, 
and  devils,  and  am  triumphant  above  principalities  and  powers,  in  heavenly 
places  in  Christ  Jesus." — p.  105. 

"  Now,  gentlemen,  I  propose  that  we  name  the  days  of  the  week  after  objects 
tliat  really  exist  in  nature,  and  about  which  there  can  be  no  dispute  but  that  they 
were  made  by  the  Infinite  One  above  us.  I  know  of  no  objects  more  suitable  to 
select  than  flowers.  These  being  common  all  over  the  earth,  their  appropriate- 
ness will  be  readily  seen. 

"  I  hope  to  write  you  co  morrow." — p.  108. 

"  Gentlemen  : — Let  me  now  mention  the  proposed  names  for  the  days  of  the 
week ;  Rose-day,  Pink-day,  JessamLne-day,  Lilly-day,  Violet-day,  Tulip-day, 
Dahlia-day.  To  us  these  names  may  at  first  seem  rather  awkward,  though  I 
am  sure  none  can  fail  of  seeing  a  beauty  in  them.  And  what  could  be  more  ap- 
propriate than  for  the  daughters  of  a  family  to  go  into  the  garden,  on  the 
first  day  of  the  week,  and  select  a  boquet  of  Roses  of  various  forms  and  colors 
and  set  them  up  in  the  parlor  as  the  god  (if  I  may  so  speak)  of  that  day.  How 
much  less  danger  there  would  be  in  worshiping  a  boquet  of  Roses,  than  in  wor- 
shipping the  Penates  of  the  Romans.  Besides,  no  one,  it  would  seem,  would  be 
so  void  of  sense  as  really  to  worship  the  flowers,  but  rather  that  moral  perfection 
of  character  in  all  holy  beings,  to  which  the  flowers  seem  to  direct  the  attention. 
Thus  by  changing  the  boquet  of  flowers  every  day  of  the  week,  a  family  would 
have  some  new  object  before  them,  to  turn  their  thoughts  to  the  Almighty  Ruler 
of  worlds.  The  change  from  the  Rose  to  the  Pink,  from  the  Pink  to  the  Jessa- 
mine, or  some  other  flower  that  could  be  substituted  for  it  where  the  Jessamine 
is  not  to  be  had,  would  be  apt  to  suggest  different  attributes  of  character  which 
it  would  be  well  to  employ  the  thoughts  about.  And  the  various  colors,  and  the 
sweet  blending  of  colors,  would  call  to  mind  all  that  is  lovely  in  the  whole  realm 
of  nature.  Nothing  that  I  can  think  of  would  have  a  better  tendency  to  keep 
God  uppermost  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  than  such  a  change  as  1  now  pro- 
pose, by  authority  from  heaven. 

"  Let  us  have  Rose  day  for  our  Sabbath  hereafter,  to  the  end  of  time.  Then 
there  will  have  been  three  Sabbaths  during  the  history  of  man.  Let  the  Tulip 
represent  the  Jewish  Sabbath.  Let  the  Dahlia  represent  the  Christian  Sabbath. 
Let  the  Rose  represent  the  Sabbath  of  Millennial  glory,  when  David's  greater  Son 
shall  take  the  sceptre  into  his  own  hands  and  rule  King  of  nations,  and  re-estab- 
lish justice  and  peace  on  earth.  Then  will  the  nations  shout  aloud  for  joy,  and 
^imerica  shall  bud  and  blossom  as  the  rose,  and  our  mother  England  will  rejoice 
at  the  prosperity  of  her  child,  when  she  shall  sit  as  queen  of  nations,  holding  the 
balance  of  empire  in  her  own  hands." — p.  109. 

The  above  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  whole.  The  letters  are  made  up  of  the 
wildest  rhapsodies  of  a  frenzied  intellect,  seized  upon  and  carried  captive  by 
the  power  of  some  dominant  idea ;  and  yet  these  disjointed  ravings — these  ma- 
niac ebullitions— are  thought  not  only  worthy  to  be  named  in  the  same  century 
with,  but  even  arrayed  by  the  side  of,  Swedenborg's  profound  and  philosophical 
developments  of  the  nature  of  man  and  the  state  of  spirits  !-  the  only  difference 


110 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


being  that  one  is  the  product  of  the  crazed  imagination  of  a  little  lunatic,  and 
tlie  other  of  a  great  one  ! 

I  cannot  forbear  to  insert  the  summing  up,  a  la  Plutarch,  of  the  grand  points 
of  the  parallel,  which  you  run  between  the  two  visionaries. 

"  If  in  any  respects  there  is  a  similitude  between  the  young  man  referred  to 
and  Swedenborg,  it  can  do  no  harm  to  notice  it.  And  however  unlike  to  the 
Swedish  Philosopher  the  American  youth  may,  in  some  respects,  seem  to  be, 
there  are  not  wanting  points  of  resemblance.  Had  the  Swede  a  powerful  intel- 
lect and  a  lively  fancy  ?  So  had  the  American  youth,  though  in  a  much  lower 
degree.  Was  the  Swede  confident  that  he  had  a  commission  from  God  to  pro- 
claim new  and  important  truths,  which  were  taught  him  from  above  ?  So  was 
this  youth.  Were  the  conceptions  of  Swedenborg's  mind  very  vivid  and  vari- 
ous, and  were  they  exhibited  in  his  writings  with  order  and  coherence?  So  it 
was,  in  a  measure,  with  our  insane  youth.  Had  the  Swede  many  lofty  and  just 
and  pleasing  thoughts  So  had  the  youth.  Did  the  former  frequently  manifest  a 
feeling  of  piety  towards  God,  and  enlarged  benevolence  townrds  mankind  ?  So  did 
the  latter.  Did  the  one  anticipate  great  and  glorious  results  from  his  agency  ?  So 
did  the  other.  Did  Swedenborg  feel  sure  that  he  had  intercourse  with  celestial 
beings Our  youth  was  also  sure  of  this  ;  and  had  he  continued  for  twenty  years 
to  be  the  subject  of  the  same  extraordinary  excitement,  as  he  was  during  the 
former  part  of  the  present  year,  and  given  himself  to  writing,  as  he  did  for  a 
time ;  might  he  not  have  competed  with  the  Swede  in  the  abundcmce  of  his 
books,  and  might  he  not  have  made  some  approximation  towards  him  as  to 
their  quality I  have  only  to  add,  that  there  are  more  wonderful  things  in  the 
actings  of  the  human  mind,  whether  sane  or  insane,  than  are  likely  to  be  known 
in  our  day  by  Swedes,  or  Germans,  or  Americans." — p.  114. 

To  the  justness  of  the  sentiment  contained  in  the  last  sentence  I  give  my 
hearty  suffrage.  It  is  a  key  to  the  solving  of  various  solutions,  by  which  I 
should  otherwise  be  sadly  mystified. 

The  title  of  "  the  Swedish  madman"  hitherto  applied  to  Charles  the  Twelfth, 
must  henceforth,  it  would  seem,  be  made  over  to  Swedenborg.  We  have  lived 
to  see  the  day  when  his  sublime  spiritualities,  which  have  moved  the  wonder 
and  enchained  the  admiration  of  thousands  of  sound  and  sober  minds — which 
have  lifted  the  veil  from  nature  and  disclosed  the  causes  of  her  hidden  operations 
— which  have  developed  the  mysteries  of  the  soul  and  enucleated  the  central  core 
of  Revelation — which  have  taught  how  Wisdom  is  wedded  to  Love,  and  Truth 
to  Good,  and  how  Life  is  related  to  both — which  have  brought  Heaven  and  Hell 
into  living  conjunction  with  the  rulmg  loves  of  man — are  gravely  brought  into 
comparison  with  the  delirious  babblings  of  an  inmate  of  a  Lunatic  Asylum !  And, 
to  add  to  our  amazement  still  more,  it  is  even  intimated  that  the  powerful  intellect 
and  vivid  fancy,  the  order  and  coherence,  of  Svvedendorg,  are  at  least  distantly 
approached  by  the  same  qualities  in  the  Bedlamite  youth  !  With  your  permis- 
sion I  will  state  another  parallel  equally  appropriate.  "Did  the  builders  of  Ba- 
bel erect  a  lofty  tower  on  the  plains  of  Shinar So  did  the  ants  construct  a  huge 
ant-hill  on  the  pampas  of  South  America.  If  there  is  any  similitude  in  the  two 
cases,  it  can  do  no  harm  to  notice  it." 

I  scarcely  know  how  to  deal  seriously  with  this  part  of  your  work.  To  say 
nothing  of  the  fact,  that  the  very  attempt  to  make  out  such  an  affinity  as  you  have 
suggested  between  these  cases,  is  a  constructive  charge  against  all  New  Church 
men  of  taking  leave  of  their  senses  at  the  beck  and  bidding  of  a  crack-brained 
fanatic,'*!  would  simply  refer  you  to  the  extracts  given  in  the  preceding  pages, 
,  with  an  appeal  to  your  candor,  whether  they  have  the  air  and  aspect  of  the  ef- 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


Ill 


fusions  of  a  disordered  mind  ?  Have  you  the  remotest  conception  of  any  dis- 
eased state  of  intellect  which  could  possibly  have  originated  such  a  train  of  deep, 
rational,  and  connected  thought  as  you  find  embodied  in  these  citations  If  it  is 
said  that  these  paragraphs  contain  the  more  favorable  specimens  of  his  writings, 
I  reply  that  hundreds  and  thousands  of  images  can  be  adduced  from  his  works  of 
similar  matter,  and  which  have  only  to  be  viewed  in  connection  with  the  philoso- 
phical principles  involved,  to  be  divested  of  all  appearance  of  absurdity  and  to  be 
resolved  into  the  oracles  of  a  wisdom  which  breathes  of  the  angelic  heaven. 
If  such  sentiments  be  an  indication  of  madness,  then  I  say  with  Coleridge  res- 
pecting our  author — "  0  thrice  happy  should  we  be,  if  the  learned  and  the 
teachers  of  the  present  age  were  gifted  with  a  similar  madness  !"  It  cannot,  I 
think,  escape  you  that  even  supposing  there  are  certain  items  m  Swedenborg's 
disclosures  which  have,  at  first  blush,  the  air  of  insanity,  that  some  plausible 
mode  is  to  be  adopted  of  accounting  for  the  admixture  of  such  an  immense 
mass  of  rationality  with  the  reputed  hallucinations.  It  is,  I  am  persuaded,  all  in 
vain  to  pass  this  over  with  a  vague  reference  to  the  unaccountable  freaks  of  dis- 
eased mental  action.  It  is  utterly  unlike  anything  the  world  has  ever  witnessed 
of  this  nature,  and  demands  solution.  Why  shall  our  perpetual  call  for  light  on 
this  head  be  disregarded .'  Why  shall  the  intelligent  receivers  of  Swedenborg's 
doctrines  remain  under  the  odium  of  being  led  by  the  illusions  of  a  raving  mon- 
omaniac, when  they  are  conscious  of  having  yielded  their  faith  on  the  most  le- 
gitimate evidence  of  truth  I  have  no  special  desire  to  vaunt  the  indications  of  a 
sound  mind  evinced  in  the  course  of  argument  which  I  have  attempted  in  the 
present  series  of  letters,  but  I  trust  I  may  venture  the  interrogatory,  whether  you 
have  met  with  anything  that  strikes  you  as  savoring  strongly  of  the  taint  of  men- 
tal malady.  If  not — if  my  reasoning,  whether  conclusive  or  not,  is  still  consec- 
utive and  plausible,  and  not  unworthy  of  a  sound  intellect — is  there  not  some- 
thing of  a  problem  in  the  fact,  that  such  a  state  of  mind  should  consist  with  a 
full  and  cordial  reception  of  what  you  regard  as  the  veriest  dreams  and  vagaries 
of  a  wrecked  and  ruined  genius  I  could  fain  wish  that  you  would  bring  your 
thoughts  calmly  concentrated  to  this  point — that  you  would  propose  some  ra- 
tional solution  of  a  mental  phenomenon  which  is  certainly  deserving  of  thor- 
ough investigation.  You  will  of  course  understand  me  as  referring  to  my  own 
case  simply  as  a  sample  of  hundreds  of  others,  far  more  deserving  of  bemg 
weighed  in  this  connection,  the  subjects  of  which  would  one  and  all  affirm,  that 
the  same  reasons  which  prompt  the  judgment  of  Swedenborg's  insanity,  would 
compel  a  lilte  verdict  in  regard  to  them.  The  pupils  are  all  as  mad  as  their 
master,  and  they  would  be  glad  to  be  informed  when  the  commission  de  hmatico 
inquirendo  is  to  be  made  out.  Meantime,  while  this  is  in  contemplation  or  prep- 
aration, I  remain  with  sentiments  of  respect  and  friendship  as  sane,  I  trust,  as 
sincere, 

Yours,  &c. 

GEO.  BUSH. 


112 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


LETTER  VIL 

Rev.  and  Dear  Sir  : 

In  the  opening  paragraphs  of  your  fourth  Lecture  I  am  again  met  by  the  recur- 
rence of  the  convenient  but  gratuitous  assumption  of  prior  theorizing,  on  the  part 
of  Swedenborg,  on  the  prevalent  doctrines  of  the  Church,  as  the  true  clew  to  his 
visionary  representations.  Thus  you  say,  "  It  is  evident  that  Swedenborg's 
powerful  and  contemplative  mind  had,  previously  to  1747,  perceived  various 
^  ^  0(  errors  and  perversions  of  truths,  which  prevailed  both  in  the  Catholic  and  the 
_  ^^°!!5?i3.n^Church.  These  errors  and  perversions  of  truth,  which  had  made  a 
^^^^^  jdeep  impression  on  his  feelings,  were  carried  into  his  visions,  and  a  great  part 
of  what  he  saw  and  heard,  and  of  what  he  himself  said,  in  the  world  of  spirits, 
was  adapted  to  expose  them."  (p.  1 18).  So  in  regard  to  the  doctrine  of  justifi- 
cation by  faith  alone ; — *'  This  was  one  of  the  points  to  which  his  thoughts  were 
very  often  directed  in  his  visionary  state,  and  to  which  they  had  evidently  been 
very  much  directed  before."  (p.  118).  Thus  also  on  anotlier  page,  "  These  doc- 
trines, which  he  had  unquestionably  thought  out  for  himself  before  his  visionary 
state  commenced,  were  continually  mixed  with  the  actings  of  his  excited  mind 
after  that  period."  (p.  119.) 

1  need  not  repeat  what  I  have  already  said  on  the  utter  groundlessness  of  this 
assumption,  as  far  as  the  existence  of  any  testimony  to  support  it  is  concerned. 
Instead  of  that  1  will  cite  a  remark  from  the  Rasselas  of  Dr.  Johnson.  "  He 
who  will  determine  against  that  which  he  knows,  because  there  may  be  some- 
thing which  he  knows  not;  he  that  can  set  hypothetical  possibility  again.st  ac- 
knowledged certainty  ;  is  not  to  be  admitted  among  reasonable  beings,"  and,  "  if 
that  which  is  known  may  be  overruled  by  that  which  is  unknown,  no  being,  not 
omniscient,  can  arrive  at  certainty."  The  language  is  his,  not  mine.  I  should 
have  said,  in  the  present  reference,  that  such  an  one  is  "  not  to  be  admitted 
among  sound  reasoning  beings,"  for  yours  is  a  gratuitous  assumption  designed  to 
ward  oft"  an  irresistible  but  unwelcome  conclusion.  But  as  this  matter  has  beea 
sufficiently  adverted  to,  I  come  to  your  grand  array  of  doctrinal  objections  to  the 
system  of  Swedenborg. 

I.  Ttie  nature  of  Godf^  "  He  held  that  God  is  very  man."  This  is  true,  and  he 
gives  a  very  good  reason  for  it,  viz.  that  man  was  created  in  the  divine  image, 
in  which  is  implied  that  the  distinguishing  attributes — the  constituent  principles 
— of  our  finite  humanity  exist  in  God  in  an  infinite  degree.  And  is  it  not  so  ? 
Are  not  love  and  wisdom,  or,  in  other  words,  affection  and  intellect,  what  really 
and  essentially  constitute  man  .'  And  are  not  these  the  distinguishing  attributes 
of  Jehovah  also.'  Is  not  that  sound  doctrine  which  we  find  in  the  following 
paragraphs  ? 

"  An  intelligent  person  cannot  deny  in  himself,  but  tliat  in  God  there  is  love 
and  wisdom,  that  there  is  mercy  and  clemency,  that  there  is  goodness  and  truth 
itself,  because  they  are  from  Him;  and  forasmuch  as  he  cannot  deny  that  these 
things  are  ui  God,  neitlicr  can  he  deny  that  God  is  a  man,  for  no  one  of  them  can 
exist  abstraciedly  from  man,  for  man  is  their  subject ;  and  to  separate  them  from 
their  subject  is  to  say,  tliat  they  do  not  exist.  Thinkof  wisdom,  and  place  it  with- 
out man,  and  then  let  me  ask,  is  it  anything/y  Can  you  conceive  of  it  as  of  some 
ethereal  principle,  or  as  of  some  principle  of  fire  !  You  cannot,  imless,  i)Ossil)ly, 
as  existing  in  tliese  principles,  and  if  in  them,  it  must  then  be  wisdom  in  a  form, 
.and  such  as  pertains  to  man.   In  a  word,  the  form  of  wisdom  is  man ;  and  foras- 

V    ',*xiy<ryt  <^  x  x.  1^*  U  4- y  (4-   *^       '    ^  ff?  A  ft  tfT/u  ■  €  .  t^^VL^f 


^  ^— - — - 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


113 


much  as  man  is  the  form  of  wisdom,  he  is  also  the  form  of  love,  mercy,  cle- 
mency, good,  and  trnth;  because  these  act  as  one  with  wisdom." — D.  L.  if 
■286. 

After  quoting  the  principal  part  of  this  passage,  you  exclaim,  "  such  is  the  ar- 
gument  of  Swedenborg ! "  And,  pray,  is  there  not  argnaient  in  this .'  Can  we  con- 
ceive  of  the  divine  love  and  the  divine  wisdom  as  existing  without  relation  to  a  ,  ^ 
person  in  whom  they  inhere Are  they  not  mere  imaginary  entities  when  viewed 
apart  froin  such  relation  ?  But  the  moment  they  are  concentred  in  a.  person,  we 
ideally  reproduce  our  ovv-n  nature  infinitely  exalted.  We  have  before  us  a  Di-r;>./ -. 
vine  Man,  by  whom  alone  the  universe  could  have  been  created.  ^.va 

Before  proceeding  with  the  remaining  extract'',  I  would  remark,  that  I  deem 
it  unfortunate  that  in  rendering  into  English  the  Latin  phrase,  Deus  est  Homo, 
Swedenborg's  translators  have  so  uniformly  expressed  itby,  (roi/w  a  Man,  where- 
as the  more  correct  version  doubtless  is,  God  is  Man.  It  is  tnie  that  the  original 
homo  may  properly  be  rendered  a  man  where  the  subject  naturally  requires  it,  as 
when  we  say,  Casar  est  homo,  Casar  is  a  man,  in  which  the  force  of  the  article  is 
to  designate  Caisar  as  one  of  the  individuals  constituting  the  race  homo  or  man. 
But  in  the  present  case,  the  object  is  to  generalih  as  much  as  possible,  and  sim- 
ply to  intimate,  that  the  constituent  principles  of  humanity  exist  in  God,  but  of 
course  in  an  infinite  degree.  This  renders  the  use  of  the  article  less  proper  as 
the  idea  is  thereby  individualized  and  corporealized  in  a  manner  quite  abhorrent 
to  the  genuine  conception  existing  in  the  mind  of  the  author.  What  this  was 
will  be  gathered  still  more  distinctly  from  what  follows.  He  first  gives  us  what 
he  affirms  to  be  the  true  angelic  idea  of  man,  in  which,  however,  it  is  not  im- 
plied that  our  human  intelligence  is  incompetent  to  judge  whether  the  idea  is  a 
correct  one. 

"That  celestial  and  spiritual  things  are  arranged  and  conjoined  into  that  form 
and  into  that  image  (the  human),  those  cannot  perceive  who  have  not  a  just  idea 
concerning  spiritual  and  celestial  things  :  they  think  that  the  terrestrial  and  ma- 
terial things,  which  compose  the  ultimate  of  man,  make  him,  and  that  without 
these  man  is  not  man.  But  let  them  know  that  man  is  not  man  from  those  things, 
but  from  this,  that  he  can  understand  truth  and  will  good :  these  are  the  spiritual 
and  celestial  things  which  make  man.  Man  also  knows,  that  e/ery  one  is  a 
man  such  as  he  is  as  to  the  understanding  and  the  will :  and  he  may  also  know, 
that  his  terrestrial  body  is  formed  to  serve  them  in  the  world,  and  to  perform 
uses  conformably  to  them  in  the  ultimate  sphere  of  nature.  Therefore  also  the 
body  acts  not  of  itself,  but  is  actuated  altogether  in  obedience  to  tlie  dictates  of 
the  understanding  and  the  will,  insomuch,  that  wliatever  man  thinks,  he  speaks  . 
with  the  tongue  and  mouth,  and  whatever  he  wills,  he  does  with  the  body  and 
members;  so  that  it  is  the  understanding  and  will  that  does,  and  the  body  does 
notliingof  itself  Hence  it  is  mai.ifest,  that  the  things  of  the  understanding  and' 
will  make  man:  and  that  they  are  in  a  similar  form,  because  they  act  into  the 
most  minute  particulars  of  the  body,  as  an  internal  into  an  external:  man  there- 
fore from  them  is  called  an  internal  and  spiritual  man  Such  a  man,  in  the  great- 
est and  most  perfect  form,  is  heaven.  Such  is  the  idea  of  the  angels  concerning 
man :  wherefore  they  never  attend  to  those  things  which  man  does  with  the  body, 
but  to  the  will  from  which  the  body  does  tliem^  this  they  call  the  man  himself; 
and  the  understanding,  so  far  as  it  acts  in  unity  with  the  will."—//.  ^  H.  60-61. 

The  iDill,  in  Swedenborg's  diction,  is  the  love  or  affection  principle.    If  such 
then  is  man,  in  his  essential  attributes,  and  if  in  these  respects  he  is  created 
m  the  likeness  and  image  of  God,  it  seems  not  easy  to  withstand  the  inference 
that  God  is  a  Divuae  Man.    On  this  head  he  speaks  as  follows. 
8 


114 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


"Because  the  angels  perceive  not  an  invisible  Divine,  which  they  call  a  Divine 
without  form,  but  a  visible  Divine  in  the  human  form,  therefore  it  is  common  for 
them  to  say,  that  the  Lord  alone  is  Man,  and  that  they  are  men  from  Him,  and 
that  every  one  is  so  far  a  man,  as  he  receives  Him.  By  receiving  the  Lord,  ihey 
understand  receiving  good  and  truth,  which  are  from  Him,  since  the  Lord  is  in 
his  good  and  in  his  truth  :  this  also  they  call  wisdom  and  intelligence.  They  say 
that  every  one  knows  that  intelligence  and  wisdom  make  man,  and  not  the  face 
without  them.  That  it  is  so,  apjjears  also  from  the  angels  of  the  interior  hea- 
vens :  they,  because  they  are  in  good  and  truth  from  the  Lord,  and  thence  in  wis- 
dom and  intelligence,  are  in  the  most  beautiful  and  perfect  human  form;  and  the 
angels  of  the  lower  heavens  in  a  less  perfect  and  beautiful  one.  But  it  is  the  op- 
posite in  hell ;  they  who  are  there,  in  the  light  of  heaven  scarcely  appear  as 
men,  but  as  monsters ;  for  they  are  in  evil  and  the  false,  and  not  in  good  and 
truth,  and  thence  are  in  the  opposites  of  wisdom  and  intelligence;  wherefore 
also  their  life  is  not  called  life,  but  spiritual  death."— i/.     H.  80. 

"  The  more  perfectly  angels  receive  the  Divine  Truth  which  is  from  the  Lord, 
and  thus  the  Lord  Himself,  so  much  more  perfect  human  forms  are  they,  and  at 
length  as  perfect  do  their  forms  become,  thence  their  beauty  exceeds  all  belief. 
He  who  shall  see  them,  as  I  have  seen  them,  will  be  wrapped  in  astonishment, 
for  they  are  heavenly  loves  and  charities  in  forms  that  are  truly  human.  They 
are  such  human  forms  because  the  Lord  is  Divine  Essence  in  heaven,  and  they 
who  receive  Divine  Truth  from  him  in  the  goodness  of  their  wills,  are  images 
of  Him." — A.  C.  9503. 

y  "For  'man'  signifies,  in  the  genuine  sense,  that  esse  from  which  man  ori- 
^gmates.  The  very  esse  from  which  man  originates  is  Divine,  consequently,  is 
celestial  and  spiritual;  without  this  Divine  celestial  and  spiritual,  there  is  no- 
thing human  in  man,  but  only  a  sort  of  animal  nature,  such  as  the  beasts  have. 
It  is  from  the  esse  of  Jehovah,  or  of  the  Lord,  that  every  man  is  a  man  ;  and  it  is 
hence  also  that  he  is  called  a  man.  The  celestial  which  constitutes  him  a  man 
is  that  he  should  love  the  Lord,  and  love  the  neighbor :  thus  he  is  a  man,  because 
he  is  an  image  of  the  Lord,  and  because  he  has  that  celestial  from  the  Lord; 
.otherwise  he  is  a  wild  beast." — A.  C.  1894. 

In  the  paragraphs  that  follow  he  developes  the  causes  to  which  the  errors  of 
the  common  conceptions  on  this  head  are  owing,  and  declares  that  there  is  in- 
nate in  all  men  a  latent  idea  of  God  that  more  nearly  accords  with  the  truth,  how- 
ever obscured  by  factitious  falsities  of  impression. 

"  Some,  in  the  christian  world,  have  formed  to  themselves  an  idea  of  God  as 
of  something  universal ;  some,  as  of  nature  in  her  inmost  principles ;  some,  as 
of  a  cloud  in  some  space  of  ether;  some,  as  a  bright  ray  of  light;  and  some,  no 
idea  at  all;  whilst  few  have  formed  an  idea  of  God  as  of  man,  when  yet 
God  is  man.  There  are  several  can.ses  that  christians  have  formed  to  them- 
'  selves  such  ideas  of  God  :  the  first  is,  because  from  their  doctrine  they  believe 
)  in  three  divine  persons  distinct  from  each  other,  in  the  Father  as  an  invisible 
God,  in  the  Lord  also,  but  as  to  his  Human  not  God.  The  second  is,  that  they 
believe  God  to  be  a  spirit,  and  they  think  of  a  spirit  as  of  wind,  or  of  air,  or  of 
ether,  when  yet  every  spirit  is  a  man.  The  third  is,  that  a  cliristian,  in  conse- 
quence of  his  faith  alone  without  life,  has  been  rendered  worldly,  and  from  self- 
love  corporeal,  and  a  worldly  ainJ  corporeal  man  docs  not  see  God  except  from 
apace,  thus  God  as  everything  inmost  in  the  universe  or  in  nature,  consequently 
as  extended,  when  yet  God  is  not  to  be  seen  from  space,  for  there  is  no  space  in 
ithe  spiritual  world,  space  there  is  only  an  appearance  grounded  on  what  ishke 
[  it  [ex  .^!)n!7/' ].  Every  sensual  man  sees  God  in  like  manner,  because  he  tliinlts 
but  little  above  the  speech,  and  the  thought  of  speech  says  to  itself, '  What  the 
eye  sees  and  the  hand  touches,  this  1  know  is,'  and  all  other  things  it  dissipates, 
as  if  ihey  were  only  things  to  be  talked  of.  These  are  the  causes  that  in  the 
christian  world  there  is  no  idea  of  God  as  man.  That  there  is  no  such  idea,  yea, 
that  there  is  a  repugnance  to  it,  you  may  know  from  examming  yourself,  and 


1 


r 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


115 


thinking  of  the  Divine  Human,  when  yet  the  Hainan  of  the  Lord  is  divine.  Ne- 
vertheless, the  above  ideas  of  God  do  not  appertain  so  much  to  the  simple,  a.s  to 
the  intelligent,  for  many  of  the  latter  arc  blinded  by  the  conceit  of  their  own  in- 
telligence, and  are  hence  infatuated  by  science,  according  to  the  Lord's  words, 
Matthew  xi.  25  ;  xiii.  13, 14,  15.  But  let  them  know,  that  all  who  see  God  as  a 
man,  see  him  froui  the  Lord,  the  rest  from  themselves;  and  they  who  see  from 
themselves,  do  not  see. 

"  iiut  I  will  relate  what  must  needs  seem  wonderful :  every  man,  in  the  idea  of 
his  spirit,  sees  God  as  a  man,  even  he  who  in  the  idea  of  his  body  sees  him  like 
a  cloud,  a  mist,  air,  or  ether,  even  he  who  has  denied  tliat  God  is  a  man  :  man 
is  in  the  idea  of  his  spirit  when  he  thinks  abstractedly,  and  in  the  idea  of  his 
body  when  [he  tliinks]  not  abstractedly  That  every  man  in  the  idea  of  his  spi- 
rit sees  God  as  a  man,  has  been  made  evident  to  me  from  men  after  death,  who 
are  then  in  the  ideas  of  spirit;  for  man  after  death  becomes  a  spirit,  in  which 
case,  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  think  of  God  otherwise  than  as  of  a  man  :  the  ex- 
periment was  made  whether  they  could  [think]  otherwise,  and  for  this  purpose  they 
were  let  into  the  state  in  which  they  were  in  the  world,  and  then  they  thought 
of  God,  some  as  of  something  universal,  some  as  of  nature  in  her  inmost  princi- 
ples, some  as  of  a  cloud  in  the  midst  of  ether,  some  as  a  bright  ray  of  light,  and 
some  in  other  ways;  but,  instantly,  when  they  came  out  of  that  state  into  a  state 
of  spirit,  they  thought  of  God  as  of  a  man;  which  also  they  wondered  at,  and 
said  it  was  implanted  [insitum]  in  every  spirit.  But  evil  spirits,  who  in  the 
world  have  denied  God,  deny  him  also  after  death;  nevertheless,  instead  of  God 
they  worship  some  spirit,  who,  by  diabolical  arts,  gains  power  over  the  rest. 
It  was  said,  that  to  think  of  God  as  a  man  is  implanted  in  every  spirit:  that  this 
is  effected  by  influx  of  the  Lord  into  the  interior  of  their  thoughts,  is  evident  from 
this  consideration :  the  angels  of  all  the  heavens  unitedly  acknowledge  the  Lord  ; 
they  acknowledge  his  Divine  which  is  called  the  Father,  they  see  his  Divine  Hu- 
man, and  they  are  in  the  Divine  Proceeding,  for  the  universal  angelic  heaven  is 
the  Divine  Proceeding  of  the  Lord  ;  an  angel  is  not  an  angel  from  anything  of  his 
own,  but  from  the  Divine  which  he  receives  from  the  Lord  ;  hence  they  are  in 
the  Lord,  and  therefore,  when  they  think  of  God,  they  cannot  think  of  any  other 
than  of  the  Lord,  in  whom  tliey  are,  and  from  whom  they  think  Add  to  this, 
that  the  universal  angelic  heaven  in  its  complex,  before  the  Lord,  is  as  one  man, 
which  may  be  called  the  Grand  Man,  wherefore  the  ange.s  in  heaven  are  in  the 
man,  who  is  the  Divine  Proceeding  of  the  Lord,  as  Avas  said  ;  and  since  their 
thoughts  have  a  direction  according  to  the  form  of  heaven,  therefore  when  they 
think  of  God,  they  cannot  think  otherwise  than  of  the  Lord.  In  a  word,  all  the 
angels  of  the  three  heavens  think  of  God  as  of  a  man,  nor  can  they  think  other- 
wise, since  if  they  would,  thought  would  cease,  and  they  would  fall  down  from 
heaven.  Hence  now  it  is,  that  it  is  implanted  in  every  spirit,  and  also  in  every 
man,  when  he  is  in  the  idea  of  his  spirit,  to  think  of  God  as  a  man." — Ath.  Creed, 
19,20. 

You  will  pardon  me,  I  trust,  for  presenting  this  subject  in  Swedenborg's  lan- 
guage, instead  of  my  own,  because  of  that  certain  indescribable  self-evidencing 
air  to  whicli  I  have  before  adverted,  and  which  can  scarcely  fail  to  make  itself 
perceived  by  the  candid  reader.  Especially  do  I  rely  upon  this  to  countervail 
the  popular  impression  of  insanity  in  the  writer.  I  wish  to  afford  the  world 
an  opportunity  of  judging  of  the  grounds  of  an  imputation,  under  which 
one  of  the  bestand  greatest  of  men  has  been  made  to  suffer  in  his  good  name  and 
memory,  to  a  degree  probably  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  the  race.  What 
must  be  the  astonishment  of  mankind  when  they  come  to  be  disabused  of  their 
false  impressions  on  this  score,  and  to  learn  that  it  is  from  precisely  such  views  as 
have  been  spread  before  the  reader  in  these  pages  that  the  charge  of  madness  has 
been  brought  against  their  author,  and  that  he  has  been  branded  as  the  dupe  of  the 
most  silly  and  ridiculous  delusions,  and  the  propagator  of  the  grossest  outrages 
upon  common  sense  and  the  reverence  due  to  divine  sanctities.  As  such  a  charge 


116  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

reflects  of  necessity  upon  all  those  who  adopt  his  disclosures  as  an  embodiment  of  ^ 
the  most  sublime  truths,  we  would  fain  point  our  fellow-men,  in  these  extracts,  ^ 
to  a  perfectly  fair  sample  of  the  ideas  and  doctrines  for  the  embracing  of  which 
we  are  often  commended  to  the  christian  compassion  of  those  who  think  it  a 
waste  of  time  to  examine  alleged  heresies  before  condemning  them.    Thus  in  I 
regard  to  the  present  topic  of  debate,  we  maintain,  according  to  Swedenborg,  ^ 
\that  God_is  very  man,  and  we  call  upon  our  opponents  to  indicate  distinctly  in  >^ 
what  respects  the  position  militates  with  the  truth.    I  have  expounded  the  prin-  ■> 
•'ciples  upon  which  the  doctrine  rests— that  man  is  man  solely  and  simply  from  ' 
his  being  constituted  of  the  elements  of  love  and  wisdom,  which  exist  in  Jeho-  J 
vah  in  an  infinite  degree  and  which  constitute  Him  what  he  is.    The  position  can  ^ 
only  be  denied  by  denying  the  fundamental  ground  in  which  it  plants  itself  If 
man  is  not  made  in  the  image  of  God  from  his  reflecting  the  divine  love  and  ^ 
wisdom,  how  is  he  thus  made  .'—how  does  he  bear  this  image 

But  you  will  doubtless  be  prompt  to  reply,  that  if  God  is  truly  man — if  He  is  V 
the  exemplar  after  which  man  is  formed — then  he  must  have  the  form  of  man,  ♦ 
and  as  form,  in  all  the  reigning  jihilosophies,  is  inherent  only  in  matter,  and  * 
as,  moreover,  the  human  form  exists  and  is  manifested  in  the  material  human 
body,  God  therefore  must  have  a  material  body  corresj^onding  in  form  to  that  of  c 
man ;  and  how  this  differs  from  the  grossest  ant li rop o m orjp h isrrf  y o u  will  pro-  ^-.^ 
bably  find  yourself  at  a  loss  to  conceive.    Strange  as  it  may  appear,  we  readily  ^ 
admit  that  if  the  above  chain  of  premises  is  sound,  the  conclusion  is  inevitable,  * 
and  that  there  is  no  escape  from  the  dilemma  charged  upon  us.    Still  we  do  es- 
cape.    A  wide  and  open  door  of  deliverance  we  find  in  Swedenborg's  profound  ^ 
doctrine  of  Form — so  profound,  that  to  mere  sensuous  thought,  which  is  so 
incompetent  to  cast  off"  the  shackles  of  Time  and  Space,  it  can  scarcely  ap- 
pear  otherwise  than  as  transcendentally  obscure.    Still  we  should  condemn  our  ^ 
own  inductions  by  charging  them  as  intrinsically  unintelligible.    It  is  to  us  an 
intelligible  idea  of  form  which  carries  it  quite  out  of  the  sphere  of  matter,  where  p 
it  is  usually  a  synonim'^for  sliape,  and  makes  it  the  inseparable  concomitant  of  es-  ^ 
sence,  and  equivalent  to  the  mode  in  which  any  thing  exists.    So  far  from  consider- 
ng  form  restricted  to  matter,  we  are  taught  to  regard  it  as  coextensive  with  all 
being,  as  we  caimot  conceive  that  any  thing  should  exist  without  existing  in  a 
form.    But  the  forms  of  sjiirits  are  not  bounded  by  space,  although,  when  clothed  ^- 
withabody  in  the  natural  Avorld,that  body  is  defined  by  spatial  extension  > 
The  material  body,  however,  genetically  considered,  is  the  result  of  the  action  of  r 
the  soul,  and  corresponds  with  its  form^-  The  one  is  in  space,  while  the  other  Ts  - 
not.    "  Organic  forms,"  says  SweTlenLorg, "  are  not  only  those  which  appear  be-,  ' 
fore  the  eye,  and  which  can  be  discovered  by  microscopes,  but  there  are  also  or-  V^ 
ganic  forms  still  purer,  which  can  never  be  discovered  by  any  eye,  whether  na-  >• 
ked  or  assisted.    The  latter  forms  are  of  an  interior  kind,  as  the  forms  which  ' 
are  of  the  interior  sight,  and  finally  those  which  are  of  the  intellect;  these  are 
inscnitable,  but  still  they  are  forms,  that  is,  substances."  • 
We  have  no  hesitation  to  speak  of  the  form  of  a  rose,  but  how  violent  ^ 
,^does  it  seem  to  us  to  speak  of  the  form  of  its  aroma  or  that  exhalation  which 
\^produces  the  sensation  of  odor.    Yet  this  must  have  a  form,  as  well  as  the  ^ 
^flower,  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  substance,  and  it  is  the  peculiar  form  of  the  --^ 
.aroma  which  produces  its  peculiar  smell,  although  it  is  usual  to  refer  this  to 


Ve 

jirii-  o  'CC.Lj        d>  ti>  e-vj  ct,^        i  c         O-ZC  -/1L9  (y^-fi 

"^o  -^l-A'V-^^  Our)  c   ^cucC^  ^   o^^d.  pfio/t  L>-cca.u:t. 

yt,  (.^<.         -  <y  Lc  ^dC  at./        dr  ^-/        "^to^  e-^  j 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  117 

its  quality ;  but  quality  when  traced  back  to  the  last  analysis  will  be  found  to  re-J 
solve  itself  into  form.  X  5 
i  y    As  to  the  human  form,  Swedenborg  thus  speaks.    "  The  first  rudiment  of  the 
human  form,  or  the  human  form  itself,  with  all  and  singular  its  parts,  is  derived 
:    from  the  principles  continued  from  the  brain  through  the  nerves.   After  death  a 
^  ,  man  comes  into  this  form,  which  is  then  called  a  spirit  and  an  angel,  and  which 
J  Us  in  all  perfection  a  man,  but  spiritual.    The  material  form  added  and  superin- 
duced  in  the  world,  is  not  a  human  form  from  itself,  but  from  the  above  spiritual 
form  ;  being  added  and  superinduced,  to  enable  a  man  to  perform  uses  in  the  nat- 
^  ]  ural  world,  and  to  carry  along  with  him,  from  the  purer  substances  of  the  world, 
:  ]  some  fixed  continent  for  spiritual  things,  and  so  to  continue  and  perpetuate  his 
-  'life.    It  is  a  tenet  of  angelic  wisdom,  that  the  mind  of  man,  not  only  in  general, 
*  I  but  in  every  particular,  is  in  a  perpetual  effort  to  the  human  form,  because  God 
^  is  Man."    When  we  speak  tlierefore  of  God  as  having  a  human  form,  we  always 
j£  have  in  mind  this  interior  spiritual  form,  from  which  the  outer  material  form 
proceeds,  and  which  has  in  itself  no  relation  to  space.*    This  form,  we  say,  per- 
tains to  God,  but  infinitely.    He  possesses  a  Divine  Human  Form.    If  it  is  ob- 
jected that  it  is  absurd  to  consider  a  human  form  to  be  divine,  because  form  ne- 
cessarily implies  limit,  boundary,  termination ;  whereas  God  is  infinite  and  nu- 
bounded,  being  every  where  equally  present;  I  reply  in  the  words  of  Mr  Clis- 
sold  :  "  If  we  cannot  attribute  form  to  God,  because  it  implies  limit;  so  neither 
can  we,  for  the  same  reason,  attribute  anything  to  Him,  or  frame  any  concep- 
tion of  his  nature.    For  all  the  ideas  we  can  entertain  of  Him,  necessarily  im- 
ply limit,  inasmuch  as  the  ideas  themselves  are  limited,  being  those  of  a  limited^ 
finite  creature;  yet  we  do  not,  for  that  reason,  cease  to  consider  certain  perfec- 
tions as  belonging  to  the  divine  nature.    None  but  an  infinite  being  can  have  in- 
finite and  therefore  adequate  ideas  of  himself;  all  finite  ideas,  however  exalted, 
must  have  form,  limit,  and  boundary,  as  truly  so  as  the  senses  or  sensations  of 
the  body.    The  objection,  therefore,  derived  from  the  idea  of  form,  is  as  appli- 
cable to  all  intellectual  ideas,  however  abstracted,  as  it  is  to  sensational  impres- 
sions.   Let  any  ideas  of  God  entertained  by  a  creature,  however  intellectual, 
however  abstracted,  nay,  however  angelic  or  spiritual,  be  embodied;  and  that 


*  It  will  be  seen  from  this,  compared  with  what  follows,  that  either  Professor  Stuart 
or  myself  is  in  a  very  ^rcat  error  as  to  Swetlenborg's  real  doctrine  on  this  head.  In  his 
recently  published  "Miscellanies"  in  speaking  of  objections  raised  against  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  from  the  mere  forms  of  expression  employed  in  the  IS'ew  Testament  he 
says  ; — "  Their  efficacy  or  validiiy  as  objections,  depends  entirely  on  interpreting  lan- 
guage, as  applied  to  the  Godhead,  according  to  its  ordinary  meaning  when  applied  to 
other  things.  This  cannot  be  any  more  correct  than  it  is  to  say,  with  the  Swedenbor- 
gians,  that  God  has  a  visible  ynaterial  form,  because  man  is  said  to  be  made  in  his  image, 
and  because  the  ordinary  parts  anil  powers  of  a  human  body  are  ascribed  to  Him" 
(p.  34).  So  again,  to  the  same  purpose,  in  another  passage;  "When  the  Scripture 
speaUs  of  his  (  God's  )  having  eyes,  ears,  hands,  feet,  etc.  all  men  who  do  not  rave  with 
Immanuel  Swedenborg,  understtind  these  terms  as  being  figurative"  (p.  155).  This 
was  first  uttered  to  the  world  in  the  year  1820,  and  however  it  might  have  then  stood  as 
a  tolerably  fair  index  of  the  gross  misapprehensions  prevalent,  even  among  Theological 
Teachers,  of  Swedenborg's  tenets,  one  might  perhaps  have  reasonably  supposed  tliat  the 
lapse  of  twenty-six  years,  during  which  they  have  been  gradually  spreading,  and  not  the 
least  slowly  in  the  vicinity  of  Anilover,  would  have  brought  wiih  it  somewhat  of  a  cor- 
rective of  the  error.  It  seems,  hovvexer,  that  in  lS-16  the  time  had  not  yet  quite  come 
for  more  truthful  views  in  that  quarter.  I  must  confess  to  very  great  doubts  whether 
the  next  twenty,  or  even  ten  years,  will  pass  and  leave  such  ignorance  either  creditable 
i/r  commpu. 


118 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


embodiment  will  as  certainly  present  a  definite  limitation,  as  any  object  present- 
ed to  the  senses.  The  objection,  therefore,  derived  from  the  idea  of  form,  if  al- 
lowed, would  tend  to  deprive  us  of  entertaining  any  idea  of  the  Deity  whatever; 
for  the  only  other  idea  we  could  entertain  is  that  which  is  formless  ;  hence  indefi- 
nite, indeterminate,  chaotic,  confused;  which  is  virtually  no  idea,  because  it 
has  no  form ;  and  that  which  has  no  form,  has  no  quality;  and  that  which  has 
neither  form  nor  quality  is  a  nonentity. 

"  What  then  .=  Are  we  to  attribute  an  external  shape  or  figure  to  God  like  that  of 
the  human  frame .'  The  answer  is,  if  we  attribute  human  properties  to  God,  why 
should  we  not  attribute  a  human  form;  when  this  form  is  only  the  form  of  those 
properties,  or  that  which  the  properties  assume  when  they  are  endowed  with  a 
real  substantial  existence  ?  But  it  is  replied,  we  do  not  imagine  that  God  pos- 
sesses those  identical  properties,  but  only  by  way  of  analogy  in  an  eminent 
sense.  True;  and  we  in  like  manner  reply,  that  neither  does  God  possess  the 
human  form,  except  by  way  of  analogy  in  an  eminent  sense.  But  this,  it  will 
be  said,  is  after  all,  only  to  deny  to  Him  this  human  form ;  we  answer,  it  no  more 
denies  to  Him  this  human  form,  than  the  attribution  to  the  Deity  of  Love,  Wis- 
dom, and  Power,  in  an  eminent  sense,  is  a  denial  that  He  possesses  those  attri- 
butes. God  is  Love  and  Wisdom  essentially  ;  consequently  they  can  be  ascribed 
to  Him  much  more  truly  than  to  man  ;  for  the  same  reason  God  is  form  itself; 
which  can  therefore  be  ascribed  to  Him  much  more  perfectly  than  to  man. 

"  The  objection  applied  to  the  idea  of  form,  is,  that  it  involves  limit  and  boun- 
dary. It  is  evident  however  that,  in  this  case,  when  we  so  think  of  form,  we 
think  of  it  in  reference  to  visible  extension,  magnitude,  or  space.  Whereas  God 
has  no  such  extension,  or  magnitude,  nor  can  space  be  attributed  to  Him;  for 
Ke  was  before  space.  The  fault  here  in  our  conception  of  forrri,  is  exactly  the 
same  as  we  have  before  pointed  out  in  reference  to  eternity.  Infinite  form  is  no 
more  visible  form  extended  ad  infinitum,  than  eternity  is  time  extended  ad  infini- 
tum ;ot  divine  love  and  wisdom  the  same  with  human  love  and  wisdom,  infinite 
in  quantity. 

"  But  it  is  said,  form  cannot  be  conceived  of  without  space.  Certainly,  if  we 
imagine  to  ourselves  a  mundane  form,  we  must  also  imagine  to  ourselves  a  muor 
dane  space;  hence,  as  the  spirit  of  man  has  a  form,  though  not  material,  so  it 
has  magnitude  and  space,  yet  not  that  space  and  magnitude  whicli  belong  to  ma- 
terial things.  Hence  it  cannot,  in  relation  to  things  material,  be  denominated 
great  or  small,  tall  or  short;  no,  nor  even  in  reference  to  time,  either  old  or 
young;  and  as  this  is  the  case  with  regard  to  man's  spirit,  in  its  relation  to  matter, 
so  also  is  it  the  case,  in  a  higher  degree,  with  regard  to  the  Almighty  Spirit,  in 
his  relation  to  creation.  Hence  we  see  the  error  into  which  the  Anthropomor- 
phites  fell.  They  were  right  in  conceiving  of  God,  as  St.  Paul  .«ays,  as  possess- 
ing a  form,  but  they  were  grossly  wrong  in  the  notions  which  they  conceived  of 
that  form,  and  which  were  merely  those  of  the  natural  man." — End  of  ike  Church, 
p.  393-396. 

Thus  it  is  that  we  explain  and  vindicate  the  position,  that  God  is  very  man  and 
from  this  you  will  readily  infer  in  what  li^ht  we  regard  the  charge  that  Swcden- 
borg  "  expressly  teaches  that  God  cannot  be  truly  worshiped  as  an  invisible 
Being.  The  Apostle  Paul,  who  represents  the  King  eternal  and  immortal  to  be 
also  invisible,  had  no  authority  with  him."  The  reply  to  this  is  already  prepared 
to  my  hands  in  what  follows. 


1 


^al^rfCUs  ii^c^i    hfroJ)^  Hie 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


119 


"That  this  church  is  the  crown  of  all  the  churches  that  have  hitherto  been  in 
the  world,  is,  because  it  will  worship  one  visible  God,  in  whom  is  the  invisible 
God,  as  the  soul  is  in  the  body  That  thus  and  no  otherwise  there  can  be  con- 
junction of  God  with  man,  is  because  man  is  natural,  and  thence  thinks  natu- 
rally;  and  the  conjunction  must  be  in  his  thoiiirht,  and  thus  in  the  affection  of 
liis  love,  and  this  is  effected  when  man  thinks  of  God  as  Man.  Conjunction 
with  an  invisible  God  is  like  conjunction  of  the  sight  of  the  eye  with  the  expanse 
of  the  universe,  of  which  it  sees  no  end;  and  also  like  sight  in  the  middle  of 
the  ocean,  which  fails  into  the  air  and  into  the  sea,  and  perishes;  but  con- 
junction with  a  visible  God  is  like  the  sight  of  a  man,  in  the  air  or  on  the  sea, 
spreading  out  his  hands  and  inviting  to  his  arms;  for  all  conjunction  of  God 
with  man  must  also  be  a  reciprocal  one  of  man  with  God,  and  this  other  reci- 
procal cannot  be  given,  except  with  a  visible  God.  That  God  was  not  visible 
before  He  assumed  the  Human,  the  Lord  himself  also  teaches  in  John  :  '  Ye  have 
not  heard  the  voice  of  the  Father,  at  any  time,  nor  seen  his  shape'  (v.  37) ;  and 
in  Moses :  '  No  one  can  see  God  and  live'  (Exod.  xxxiii.  20).  But  that  He  is  seen 
through  his  Human,  in  John:  '  No  one  hath  seen  God  at  any  time  ;  the  only  be- 
gotten Son,  who  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  He  hath  brought  Him  forth  to 
view'  (i.  18);  and  again:  'Jesus  said,  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life; 
no  one  comethto  the  Father,  except  through  Me.  He  that  knoweth  Me,  know- 
eth  the  Father,  and  He  thatseeth  Me,  seeth  the  Father'"  (xiv.  6,  7,  9). —  T.  C.  R. 
787. 

As  to  any  bold  impugning  of  the  authority  of  an  apostle  in  the  utterance  of  such 
views  as  I  have  cited  above,  it  seems  difficult  to  detect  it  in  the  simple  intima- 
tion that  there  must  be  an  intellectual  or  spiritual  vision  of  God  in  order  to  any  ac- 
ceptable worship  of  Him.  In  no  other  sense  did  Swedenborg  teach  that  God 
must  be  visible  in  order  to  be  a  proper  object  of  worship.  How  then  is  it  possi- 
ble to  make  out  any  real  conflict  between  the  teachings,  on  this  head,  of  Paul 
and  of  Swedenborg  ?  Does  Swedenborg  affirm  that  God  is  visible  to  the  out- 
ward eye Does  Paul  deny  that  he  is  visible  to  the  inward  eye  How  then  is 
their  testimony  at  variance  How  is  Swedenborg  any  more  in  conflict  with 
Paul,  tlian  Paul  is  with  Christ 

IL  The  Trinitij. — "  He  rejects  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  it  has  been  and  is 
received  by  the  Evangelical  churches,  and  holds  a  doctrine  similar  to  Sabellian- 
iam/  Although  the  Scriptures  so  often  and  so  clearly  represent  the  Father  and 
the  Son  as  distinct  persons,  and  as  speaking  to  and  of  each  other  as  thus  distinct, 
he  denies  this  distinction  and  strenuously  maintains  that  the  Father  and  the  Son 
are  one  and  the  same  person."  And  sorry,  indeed,  should  I  be  if  he  did  not.  He 
must  otherwise,  as  I  conceive,  have  contradicted  both  Scripture  and  Reason,  and. 
thus  have  forfeited  all  claim  to  be  received  in  his  professed  character  of  a  mes- 
senger of  truth  from  heaven.  But  upon  this  I  shall  have  more  to  say  in  the 
sequel.  At  present  1  beg  leave  to  quote  a  paragraph  from  your  work  in  connec- 
tion with  two  or  three  from  Prof.  Stuart's  Letter  to  Dr.  Channing,  which  seem  to 
show  at  least  a  very  different  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  word  person  in  relation 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.    You  say : — 

"  Now  it  is  my  belief,  and  it  is  the  common  belief  of  the  most  intelligent  and 
pious  Christians,  that  the  doctrine  of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  three  persons 
in  one  God,  is  one  of  the  essential  truths  of  our  religion,  and  that  the  prayers  of 
those  who  have  held  this  doctrine,  have  had  power  with  God,  and  have  pre- 
vailed, and  do  prevail  to  bring  down  rich  blessings  upon  the  church  and  the 
world.  The  teachings  of  Swedenborg  on  this  subject  are  manifestly  Anti-Scrip- 
tural, and  are  in  a  shocking  degree  uncharitable  and  exclusive.  ,  And  it  will  soon 
appear  that  they  lead  to  the  denial  of  all  the  doctrines  of  gracg."' — p.  122. 


no 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


You  intimate  not  the  slightest  breath  of  objection  to  the  word  person  in  connec- 
tion with  the  general  subject.  Not  so  your  venerable  colleague,  whom  1  should 
be  sorry  to  think  you  charged  with  undervaluing  "  an  essential  truth  of  our 
religion." 

"  I  could  wish  indeed  on  some  accounts,  that  the  word  person  had  never  come 
into  the  symbols  of  the  churches,  because  it  has  been  the  occasion  of  so  much 
unnecessary  dispute  and  difficulty." — Miscellanies,  p.  22. 

"  I  may,  on  the  whole,  be  permitted  to  say,  that  the  present  generation  of 
Trinitarians  do  not  feel  responsible  for  the  introduction  of  such  technical  terms 
(as  that  of  person),  in  senses  so  diverse  from  the  common  ideas  attached  to  them. 
They  merely  take  them  as  they  find  them.  For  my  own  part,  1  have  shown  suf- 
ficiently that  I  have  no  attachment  to  them;  I  think  them,  on  the  whole,  not 
very  happily  and  warily  chosen,  and  could  rather  wish  they  were  dropped  by 
general  consent  " — Id.  p.  63. 

I  fear  the  learned  Professor  is  not  duly  aware  that  the  dropping  the  term  would 
be  a  tnost  effectual  mode  of  dropping  the  thing:  for  nothing  can  be  clearer 
than  that  the  accredited  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  the  doctrine  of  three  Divine  Per- 
sons, nor  do  I  see  how  it  could  stand  a  day,  as  now  understood,  if  the  word  per- 
sons should  be  given  up,  and  its  advocates  should  fall  back  upon  the  teim  distinc- 
tions. What  would  they  then  have  to  urge  against  Swedenborg's  view,  which  is 
emphatically  that  of  a  three-fold  distinction  in  the  one  Divine  nature  and  person.' 
But  it  would  seem  very  obvious  from  the  following  passage  that  Professor  Stuart 
s  by  no  means  strenuous  for  retaining  the  dogma  in  its  hitherto  symbolical  and 
technical  form. 

"  It  is  time  to  close  this  protracted  Note.  I  cannot  do  this,  however,  without 
adduig  a  word  on  the  position  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  all  evangelical  churches 
ought  to  take,  in  reference  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  (1)  They  should  in- 
sist on  it,  that,  according  to  the  Scriptures,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  are  one 
God,  and  but  one,  the  spane  in  substance,  equal  in  power  and  glory.  (2)  They 
should  maintain,  that  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  divine  and  human,  in  the  per- 
fection and  fulness  of  both,  are  united.  (3)  They  ought  not  to  exact  from  any 
one,  professing  the  Christian  faith,  that  he  should  adopt  any  definition  or  descrip- 
tion of  the  word  person,  as  apiilied  to  the  Godhead  or  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
which  mere  philosojihy  or  theology  has  made  out,  but  which  is  not  taught  in  the 
Scriptures.  (4)  If  I  might  be  permitted  freely  to  speak  my  own  opinion,  I 
would  further  say,  that  I  should  regard  the  omission  of  the  word  person  in  alt 
church-creeds  as  quite  desirable,  in  order  to  avoid  fruitless  and  endless  controver- 
sy and  misunderstanding.  If  any  one  is  startled  at  this,  I  take  shelter  under  a 
name,  which,  although  once  cast  out,  and  abhorred  by  niany,  and  often  covered 
with  reproach,  now  commands,  among  nearly  all  parties  of  the  intelligent,  unaf- 
fected reverence  and  admiration;  1  mean  the  name  of  Calvin.  In  his  Institutes, 
I.  13  o,  he  says:  '  Utinam  sepulta  essent  iVbmiJia, constaret modo  hacc  intcrom- 
nes  fides  :  Putremet  Filium  el  Spirilum  Sanctum  esse  unum  Deum  ;  i  e.  IMy  wish  is, 
that  all  names  might  be  buried,  provided  this  article  of  fai;h  might  be  qgreed  up^ 
on  by  all;  The  F.^tukr  and  Son  and  Holy  Spiuit  auk  one  God.'  ^  '    ''  >  vS' 

'  "  1  need  not  say  how  many  anxious  minds  would  be  calmed  by  the  adoption  of 
such  a  noble  and  scriptural  sentiment,  and  by  agreeing  upon  it  as  one  of  the  con- 
ditions of  Christian  confidence  and  communion.  My  belief  is,  that  the  churches 
must  go  back,  and  make  more  of  the  Bible,  and  less  of  creeds,  in  order  to  revive 
the  spirit  of  the  primitive  ages  of  Christianity.  When  they  shall  be  as  anxious 
to  promote  brotherly  harmony,  and  kindness,  and  true  liberality,  as  they  have  for 
a  long  time  been  to  inllarne  sectarian  zeal,  and  increase  the  causes  of  dissension 
by  sectarian  creeds,  and  to  treat  with  severity  and  contempt  or  reproach  those 
who  differ  from  them  in  matters  nncsscntiiil,  then  will  the  world  once  more  be 
constrained  to  say  ;  Sec  how  these  Christians  love  one  another  !  Then,  to  use  the  last 
words  of  the  adorable  .Saviour,  'will  they  all  be  one;'  and  then  (but  not  till 
then,)  '  will  the  world  believe  that  Christ  is  sent  by  the  Father.' " — Id.  p.  74. 


.9 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


121 


Tliese  are  very  noble  sentiments,  and  I  am  unable  to  discover  in  what  res- 
pects the  adopters  of  Swedenborg's  system  have  failed  to  take  precisely  this 
ground.  It  is  substantially  the  very  position  they  have  taken  from  the  outset. 
Yet  you  remark  in  regard  to  it,  that  "  the  teachings  of  Swedcuborg  on  this  sub- 
ject are  manifestly  Anti-Scriptural,  and  are  in  a  shocking  degree  uncharitable  and 
exclusive."  That  is  to  say,  while  one  of  the  Professors  of  the  Andover  Seminary 
has  pointed  out  a  position  which  all  evangelical  churches  ought  to  take  in  regard 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and  which  the  Church  that  receives  the  teach- 
ings of  Swedenborg  has  all  along  taken,  another  Professor  in  the  same  Sem- 
inary denounces  as  "  manifestly  anti-scriptiiral  "  and  shockingly  uncharitable, 
when  professed  by  this  Church,  the  very  form  of  doctrine  recommended  by  his 
colleague,  to  the  adoption  of  all  Evangelical  Christian  sects  !  This  must  be  al- 
lowed, I  think,  to  present  a  specimen  of  rather  an  anomalous  kind  of  unity  in 
the  heads  of  a  Theological  Institute— one  however  to  which  I  allude  grievingly 
and  not  invidiou.sly.  Instead  of  dwelling  upon  it,  I  proceed  to  offer  a  few  re- 
marks on  the  general  theme. 

The  process  of  argument  which  it  would  be  proper  to  adopt  with  a  Unitarian 
on  this  subject  would  be  out  of  place  in  the  controversy  with  you.    You  will 
concede  at  once  the  identity,  in  some  sense,  of  the  Jehovah  of  the  Old  Testament 
with  the  Jesus  of  the  New.    The  quotations  soon  to  be  adduced  put  that  point 
beyond  question.    But  the  august  name  Jehovah  certainly  indicates  the  one^^ 
only  living  and  true  God,  and  if  this  name  is  applied  to  Jesus  Christ  we  must, 
demand  the  authority  on  which  it  is  supposed  to  denote  any  less  than  the  whole 
Godhead.    What  grounds  are  there  for  the  assumption,  that  it  was  a  certain  por- 
tion of  the  Deity,  to  wit,  the  second  Person,  which  became  incarnate.'  The' 
plain  import  of  the  Word  is  that  it  was  the  whole  divine  nature  which  clothed  itself 
with  humanity  for  the  redemption  of  the  world.    It  is  in  Jesus  that  "  all  the  full- 
ness of  the  Godhead  dwells  bodily."    The  Scriptures  in  teaching  this  teach  em- 
phatically the  doctrine  of  the  divine  unity.    Consequently  they  cannot,  at  the^ 
sajne  time,  teach  an  opposite  doctrine.    No  view  of  any  personal  distinction  can^' 
be  admitted,  which  conflicts  with  the  great  cardinal  truth  of  the  essential  unity 
of  Jehovah.    If  the  fact  of  a  threefold  distinction  is  to  be  acknowledged — as  it  un- 
doubtedly is — it  must  still  be  such  as  to  consist  entirely  with  the  previously 
established  unity.    Now  we  contend  that  the  current  dogma  of  a  Trinity  of  per- 
sons is  7iot  consistent  with  such  a  unity.    It  is  not,  in  fact,  so  much  a  Trinity  in 
unity,  as  a  Trinity  in  unanimity — a  Trinity  of  thi'ee  unanimous  Gods  acting  in 
unison  with  each  other  for  the  accomplishment  of  a  certain  end.    This,  we  are 
persuaded,  is  practically  the  doctrine  received  by  the  great  mass  of  Christians,  and 
we  are  equally  persuaded  that  it  is  a  view  of  the  subject  which  vitiates  the  entire 
system  of  Christianity  as  generally  adopted.    A  plurality  of  persons  will  inevit- 
ably beget  the  interior  impression  of  a  plurality  of  essences,  which  is  virtually 
plurality  of  Gods. 

Far  different  from  this  is  the  Trinity  tauglit  by  Swedenborg.  This  is  a  Trinitjp 
of  Essential  Attributes  and  Principles — Love,  Wisdom,  and  Act — to  which  respect-^  'J'n 
'■y^.?^SSwer  the  titles  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit.  In  the  incarnation  the  D% 
vine  Love,  which  is  the  very  Esse  of  the  Godhead,  and  economically  termed  the 
Father,  as  the  ground,  or  producing  cause,  of  all  being,  is  invisibly  present  in 
the  Divine  Wisdom  or  Truth,  the  Divine  Existere,  termed  the  Son,  and  from  both 
in  conjunction  emanates  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Divine  Proceeding  or  operative  En- 


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ergy  and  Iiiflnence  by  which  the  soul  is  spiritually  enlivened,  enlightened,  and 
sanctified,  but  all  constituting  one  Essence  and  one  Person.  Viewed  in  this  light 
the  whole  subject  assumes  a  new  aspect.  The  cloud  of  mystery  gathered  around 
it,  and  which  has  so  long  darkened  the  Christian  orb,  is  dispelled,  and  the  Scrip- 
tures became  intelligible  in  their  deepest  recesses,  as  well  as  those  which  speak 
of  the  inferiority  of  our  Lord  to  the  Father,  as  those  which  spake  of  his  equality. 
"  My  Father  is  greater  than  I,"  that  is,  the  Divine  Love,  being  the  inmost — the 
Esse  of  Jehovah — is  superior  and  comparatively  greater  than  the  Divine  Wisdom, 
as  affection  in  all  beings  is  an  element  paramount  to  inlelled.  Again,  "  The  Son 
can  do  nothing  of  himself ;"  so  neither  in  fact  can  the  Father  do  anything  of  him- 
self;  for  the  Divine  Love,  signified  by  the  Father,  effects  nothing  but  by  means 
of  the  Divine  fTivrfom,  signified  by  the  Son  ;  and  the  Divine  Wisdom,  of  itself,  can  ef- 
fect nothing  unless  the  Divine  Love,  as  its  soul  and  energy,  gives  the  power  ; 
just  as  affection  in  man  acts  conjointly  with  thought,  and  thought  v/ith  affection. 
On  the  same  ground  all  the  subordinate  acts  and  offices  of  the  Son  in  the  scheme 
of  redemption  are  easily  explicable  without  the  least  invasion  of  the  unity  of  the 
Divine  Person  and  Essence.  Let  the  fundamental  truth  of  the  whole  work  of 
human  redemption  having  direct  relation  to  the  three  constituents  of  the  Divine 
Nature— Love,  Wisdom,  and  Operation^and  of  its  being  designed  to  bear  upon 
the  corresponding  principles  of  human  nature — affection,  intellect,  and  action- 
be  understood,  and  the  subject  is,  in  a  great  measure,  happily  relieved  of  doubt, 
mystery,  and  confusion. 

You  mtimate  a  difficulty  in  understanding  how  it  can  be  said  that  the  Son  was 
sent  by  the  Father,  unless  the  common  distinction  of  Persons  be  maintained.  But 
do  you  see  no  difficulty  in  this  in  your  own  admitted  view  of  the  essential  unity 
of  the  Father  and  the  Son     However  explained,  it  must  of  necessity  be  cousist- 

.  ent  with  that  unity.  What  solution  then  can  possibly  be  given,  but  that  Jeho- 
vah sent  himself  into  the  world  in  the  manifested  Form  of  the  Son,  or  as  Sweden- 
borg  expresses  it,  that  Jehovah  descended  as  the  Divine  Truth  without,  at  the 
same  time  separating  the  Divine  Good "  The  Lord  frequently  said  that  the 
Father  sent  Him  into  the  world,  and  that  he  was  sent  by  the  Father,  and  this  he 
says,  because  by  being  sent  into  the  world  is  meant  to  descend  and  come 
amongst  men;  and  this  was  done  by  the  Human  which  He  assumed  by  means 
of  the  virgin  Mary.  That  by  the  Son  of  Mary  is  meant  the  merely  human,  is 
manifest  from  the  generation  of  man,  that  the  soul  is  from  the  Father,  and  the 
body  from  the  mother;  for  the  soul  is  in  the  seed  of  the  father,  and  it  is  clothed 
with  a  body  in  the  mother ;  or,  what  is  the  same,  all  the  spiritual  that  a  man  has, 
is  from  the  father,  and  all  the  material  from  the  mother.  As  to  the  Lord,  the 
Divine  which  lie  had  was  from  Jehovah,  the  Father,  and  the  human  was  from 
the  mother;  these  two  united  are  the  Son  of  God." — T.  C.  R.  92.    The  Divine 

I  Essence  is  of  course  indivisible,  and  when  it  is  said  that  Jesus  was  born  of  Jeho- 
vah, the  Father,  nothing  else  can  be  understood  than  that  the  Divine  Esse,  in  its 
entireness,  became  incarnate  in  the  Son  ;  or  in  other  words,  that  the  Father  sent 

;  himself  into  the  world  in  the  person  of  the  Son.  In  this  person  he  came  first  into 
a  state  of  humiliation  or  exinanition.  and  in  that  state,  from  the  necessity  of  the 
case,  he  adopts  the  language  proper  to  an  economical  subordination.  He  is  said  to 
have  prayed  to  the  Father — to  have  done  his  will — to  have  attributed  to  Him  his 

.works.    But  consequent  to  this  was  his  state  of  exaltation,  in  which  his  Human- 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


123 


itj^was  glorified  and  fully  united  to  the  Divinity,  and  he  then  speaks  no  more  iii 
tbe  language  of  inferiority.  He  henceforth  speaks  as  doing  himself  alone  all  that' 
he  promises  to  accomplish  for  his  disciples.  Having  now  become  the  Person 
of  the  Father  he  utters  himself  in  language  appropriate  to  that  character.  "  In 
mgname  they  jhall  cast  out  devils,"  &c.  "Behold,  T  send  the  promise  of  mjr 
father  upon  you."  "  He  breathed  upon  them  and  saith  unto  them,  Receive  ye!' 
the  Holy  Ghost."  "  To  him  that  overcometh  will  I  give  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  life."^ 
will  give  to  every  one  of  you  according  to  your  works."  "  To  him  will  I 
giver  power  over  the  nations."  Upon  all  this  you  will  be  prepared  to  make 
your  o\vii  comments. 

But  you  go  on  to  say,  "  He  holds  a  doctrine  similar  to  Sabellianism."    It  is  sim- 
lar  in  the  fact  that  it  denies  the  tri- personality  of  the  Godhead,  but  it  is  quite 
diverse  in  other  respects.    Sabellius  held  that  the  terms  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost  were  merely  the  names  of  a  three-fold  manifestation  of  the  one  undistin- 
■guished  essence  of  the  Deity.*    Swedenborg,  on  the  other  hand,  maintains  a  furi+ 
damental  distinction  of  the  principles  of  Love,  Wisdom,  and  Operation,  in  thei 
very  inmost  nature  of  the  Divine  Being,  and  that  the  names  Father,  Son,  andl 
Holy  Ghost,  have  relation  respectively  to  these  three  principles,  which,  how* 
^ver,  are  as  far  from  constituting  three  distinct  persons  as  Soul,  Body,  and  Opera-r 
*  tion  or  Action  in  man  are  from  constituting  him,  individually,  three  persons.    "  B^ 
Father,"  says  Mr.  Noble,  "  when  mentioned  in  Scripture,  is  not  meant  a  GodJ 
distinct  from  Jesus  Christ,  but  His  inmost  principle  of  Divine  life,  answering  (to> 
compare  things  infinite  with  things  finite,)  to  the  soul  in  man.    By  the  Son  is 
not  meant  a  Divine  Being  separate  from  the  Father,  but  the  manifested  Form 
of  the  Divine  Essence,  answering  to  the  body  in  man.    And  by  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
not  meant  a  Divine  Person  distinct  from  both,  but  the  operating  life  or  influence 
of  the  Divine  Essence  and  the  Divine  Form  in  union,  answering  to  the  operating 
faculty  in  man,  or  to  the  influence  which  he  exercises  upon  persons  and  things 
within  his  sphere  of  action.    Thus  the  whole  Divine  Trinity  centres  in  the  one 
undivided  person  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  and  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit 
no  more  form  three  divine  persons  or  Gods,  than  soul,  body,  and  operation,  in 
each  of  us,  form  three  human  persons  in  man." — Sermon  on  the  Trinity,  p.  19.  ^ 
As  to  the  assertion  that  "  the  Scriptures  so  often  and  so  clearly  represent  the 
Father  and  the  Son  as  distinct  persons,"  you  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  aware  that, 
even  without  the  limits  of  the  New  Church,  there  is  so  large  an  amount  of  dis- 
sent as  to  the  matter  of  fact  on  this  head,  that  it  can  by  no  means  be  expected 
to  be  taken  for  granted,  though  emanating  from  the  highest  professorial  chair 
in  Christendom.    I  know  not  of  a  single  passage  in  the  Scriptures  where  any 
such  representation  is  made,  and  so  long  as  the  following  passages  stand  unre- 
voked in  the  Oracles  of  Truth  I  can  see  no  posibility  of  regarding  the  Son  as  a 
different  person  from  the  Father. 


*  "  As  accordin^r  to  the  apostle  St.  Paul,  there  is  one  Spirit,  and  yet  this  one  Spirit 
workelh  several  ways  through  manifold  gifts  and  graces  ;  thus  also  he  (Sabellius)  says, 
is  God  the  Father  one  and  the  same,  but  he  pours  himself  abroad  in  the  Son  and  the 
Holy  Ghost,  under  which  names  he  means  to  designate  only  two  different  modes  of  ope- 
ration of  the  same  Divine  subject ;  namely  God  the  Father.  Therefore  he  says  also, 
it  is  one  Divine  Being,  as  to  its  self-existence,  which  is  designated  by  two  different 
names  according  to  these  different  modes  of  operation." — Neander's  Ch.  Hist.  p.  380. 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


"  '  Mary  said,  My  soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord,  and  my  spirit  hath  rejoiceth  in 
God  my  Saviour'  (Luke  i.  46,  47).    '  The  angel  said  to  the  shepherds,  Behold,  ! 
bring  you  tidings  of  great  joy,  which  shall  be  unto  all  people,  that  there  is 
born  ihis  day,  in  the  city  of  David,  a  Saviour,  who  is  Christ  the  Lorp'  (Luke  ii. 
10,  11).    '  They  said.  This  is  indeed  the  Christ,  the  Saviour  of  the  world  '  (John 
iv.  42).   '  I  will  help  thee,  saith  Jehovah,  and  thy  Redeemer,  the  Holy  One  of 
Israel'  (Isaiah  xli.  14).    "Thus  saith  Jehovah  thy  Creator,  0  Jacob,  and  tht 
Former,  0  Israel;  for  I  have  redke.med  thee.    I  am  Jehovah  thy  God,  the  Holt 
One  of  Israel,  thy  Saviour'  (xliii.  1,3).    '  Thus  saith  Jehovah  your  Redeemer,  the 
Holy  One  of  Israel:  I  am  Jehovah  your  Holy'  One,  the  Creator  of  Israrl,  your 
King'  (xlii.  14,  15).    '  Thus  saith  Jehovah,  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  and  his  For- 
mer'(xlv.  11).    'Thus  saith  Jehovah  thy  Redeemer,  the  Holy  One  of  Israel ' 
(xlviii.  17).    'That  all  flesh  may  know  that  I  Jehovah  am  thy  Saviour  and  thy 
Redeemer,  the  Mighty  Oi\E  of  Jacob'  (xlix.  26).    '  Then  He  shall  come  to  Ziou  a 
Redef.mer'  (lix.  20).  '  That  thou  mayst  know  that  I  Jehovah  am  thy  Saviour  and 
thy  Redee.mer,  the  Mighty  One  of  Jacob'  (Ix  16).    '  Jehovah  thy  Former  from 
the  womb' (xlix.  5).    '  Jehovah  my  Rock  and  my  Redeemer'    (Psalm  xix.  14). 
'  They  remembered  that  God  was  their  rock,  and  the  High  God  their  Redeemer' 
(Lxxxviii,  35).    '  Thus  saith  Jehovah,  thy  Redeemer,  and  thy  For;:er  from  the 
womb'  (Isaiah  xliv.  24).     'As  for  our  Redeemer,  Jehovah  of  hosts  is  his 
name,  the  Holy  One  of  Israel' (xlvii.  4).    'With  everlasting  kindness  will  I 
have  mercy  on  thee,  saith  Jehovah  thy  Redeemer'  (liv.  8).    '  Their  Redeemer  is 
strong,  Jehovah  of  hosts  is  his  name  '  (Jerem.  1.  34).    '  Let  Israel  hope  in  Jeho- 
vah, for  with  Johovah  there  is  mercy,  and  with  Him  plenteous  redemption.  He 
shall  redeem  Israel  from  all  his  iniquities'  (Psalm  cxxx  7,8).    'Jehovah  my 
rock,  my  fortress,  and  the  horn  of  my  salvation,  my  Saviour'  (2  Samuel  xxii.  2, 
3).    '  Thus  saith  Jehovah,  the  Redeemer  of  Israel,  his  Holy  One  ;  Kings  shall  see 
and  arise  because  of  the  Lord,  who  is  faithful,  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  who  hath 
chosen  Thee '  (Isaiah  xlix.  7).    '  Surely  God  is  in  thee,  and  there  is  no  other 
God  besides.    Verily  thou  art  a  God  that  hidest  Thyself,  0  God  of  Israel  the  Sa- 
viour' (xlv.  14,  15).    '  Thus  saith  Jehovah,  the  King  of  Israel,  and  his  Redeemer, 
Jehovah  of  hosts,  Bf.side  Me  there  is  no  God'  (xliv.  6).    '  I  am  Jehovah,  and  be- 
side Me  there  is  no  Saviour'  (xliii.  11).    'Am  not  I  Jehovah,  and  there  is  no 
other  beside  Me;  and  a  Saviour,  there  is  none  beside  Me'  (xlv.  21).    'I  am  Je- 
hovah thy  God,  thou  shalt  know  no  God  but  Me,  for  there  is  no  Saviour  beside 
Me  '  (Hosea  xiii.  4).    '  Look  unto  Me,  that  ye  may  be  saved,  all  ye  ends  of  the 
earth ;  because  I  am  God,  and  there  is  none  else '  (Isaiah  xlv.  22).    '  Jehovah  of 
Hosts  is  his  name,  and  thy  Redeemer  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  the  God  of  the 
whole  earth  shall  He  be  called'  (liv.  5).    From  these  it  may  be  seen,  that  the 
Divine  of  the  Lord,  which  is  called  the  Father,  and  here  Jehovah  and  God,  and 
the  Divine  Human  which  is  called  the  Son,  and  here  Redeemer  a\ul  Saviour,  also 
Former,  that  is,  Reformer  and  Regenerator,  are  not  two  but  one  ;  for  not  only  is 
it  said,  Jehavah  God  and  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  the  Redeemer  and  Saviour;  but 
also  it  is  said,  Jehovah  the  Redeemer  and  Saviour;  yea  also  it  is  said,  '  1  am  Je- 
hovah, and  beside  Me  there  is  no  Saviour.'    From  which  it  manifestly  ap- 
pears, that  the  Divine  and  Human  in  the  Lord  are  one  person.'" — Dod.  of  the 
Lord,  54. 

From  this  you  will  readily  perceive,  that  in  the  doctrine  of  the  New  Church 
on  this  head,  instead  of  the  confused  and  distracting  idea  of  the  one  God  divided 
ifito  three  distinct,  divine  entities,  one  of  whom  is  the  Creator,  another  the  Re- 
deemer, and  the  third  the  Regenerator  of  man,  we  have  set  before  us  the  one 
glorious  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  the  supreme  and  only  object  of  our  love, 
faith,  and  adoration;  who  in  Himself  comprehends  the  Godhead  in  all  its  divine 
fullness;  who  as  to  his  Divinity  is  the  Father,  as  to  his  Humanity  the  Sou,  and 
from  whom  alone  proceeds  the  Holy  Spirit ;  who  is,  therefore,  at  once  our  Creator, 
our  Redeemer,  and  our  Regenerator. 

To  the  above  allow  me  to  add  an  extract  from  Swedenborg  which  gives  a 


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123 


very  distinct  view  of  his  teaching  on  the  head  of  the  Divine  Personahty,  the 
especial  theme  of  our  present  remarks.* 

"  It  has  been  shown  that  the  doctrine  of  faith,  which  has  its  name  from  Atha- 
nasiiis,  leaves  a  clear  idea,  whiLst  it  is  read,  that  there  are  three  per.*ons,  and 
hence  that  there  are  three  unanimous  Gods,  and  an  oli.'icurc  idea  that  God  is  one, 
and  so  obscure,  that  it  does  not  remove  the  idea  of  three  Gods  :  and  further,  that 
the  same  doctrine  leaves  a  clear  idea  that  the  Lord  has  a  Divine  and  a  Human, 
or  that  the  Lord  is  God  and  Man,  but  an  obscure  idea  that  the  Divine  and  Hu- 
man of  the  Lord  are  one  person,  and  that  his  Divine  is  in  his  Human  as  the  soul 
in  the  body.  It  has  been  also  said,  that  nevertheless,  all  things  in  that  doctrine, 
from  beginning  to  end,  both  such  as  are  clear  and  such  as  are  obscure,  agree 
and  coincide  with  the  truth,  if  instead  of  this,  that  God  is  one  in  essence  and  three 
in  person,  it  be  believed,  as  the  real  truth  is,  that  God  is  one  both  in  essence  and 
in  person.  There  is  a  trinity  in  God,  and  there  is  also  unity;  that  there  is  a 
trinity  may  be  manifest  from  the  passages  in  the  Word  M'liere  mention  is  made 
of  the  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Spirit;  and  that  there  is  unity,  from  the  passages 
in  tlie  Word,  where  it  is  said  that  God  is  one.  The  unity  in  which  is  a  trinity, 
or  the  one  God  in  whom  is  a  trine,  is  not  iriven  in  the  Divine  which  is  called  the 
Father,  nor  in  the  Divine  which  is  called  the  Holy  Spirit,  but  in  the  Lord  alone. 
In  the  Lord  there  is  a  trine,  viz.  the  Divine  which  is  called  the  Father,  the  Divine 
Human  which  is  called  the  Son,  and  the  Divine  Proceeding  which  is  the  Holy 
Spirit ;  and  this  trine  is  one,  because  it  is  of  one  person,  and  may  be  called  a 
tniine." — Alh.  Creed,  13. 

You  will  see  from  this  the  real  ground  of  those  intimations  on  which  you  have  ' 
brought  the  charge  of  a  shocking  degree  of  uncharitableness  and  exclusiveness. 
If  the  doctrine  of  three  persons  is  virtually  the  doctrine  of  three  Gods,  as  he  con- 
stantly affirms,  an  error  of  such  magnitude  in  regard  to  the  central  truth  of  Rev- 
elation must  undoubtedly  have  all  the  disastrous  effects  1  e  ascribes  to  it.  This 
consequence  is  well  set  forth  in  the  following  paragraph.  "  If  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity  be  a  fundamental  doctrine,  if  also  we  so  regard  it,  it  must  of  course 
enter,  more  or  less,  into  every  other  doctrine  of  Christianity;  it  must,  therefore, 
enter  into  that  of  the  Atonement,  which,  after  the  Trinity,  is  next  in  importance  ; 
and  if  this  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  enters  into  that  of  the  Atonement,  then  must 
also  our  views  of  this  doctrine.  I  take  this  for  granted  :— a  universal  truth  must 
enter  into  all  the  particular  truths,  under  it.  Consequently,  if  there  be  any  trithe- 
ism  in  our  views  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  we  must  carry  it  into  the  doc^ 
trine  of  the  Atonement;  and  not  only  so,  but  thistritheism  must  be,  more  or  less, 
the  basis  upon  which  our  views  of  the  Atonement  are  founded;  and  hence  the 
doctrine  of  the  Atonement  will  be,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  a  practical  devel- 
opment and  application  of  a  system  of  tritheism."— C/wo/cZ's  Letter, p.  24. 

But  I  find,  as  usual,  that  Swedenborg's  own  language,  on  this  head,  is  more 
to  the  point  than  anything  that  is  to  be  met  with  elsewhere. 

*  It  cannot  but  be  immensely  curious  to  a  New  Churchman  to  see  such  an  amazing 
specimen  of  theological  crudity  as  is  contained  in  the  following  extract  Irom  an  English 
Divine  of  the  last  century. 

"  One  consequence  of  the  end  or  conclusion  of  Christ's  spiritual  Kingdom  as  Re- 
deemer of  the  World,  may  not  improbably  be  a  dissolution  of  the  Hyposfatical  Union 
of  the  Divine  and  Human  natures  in  the  person  of  Christ.  He  assumed  the  latter  into 
the  former,  for  the  Redemption  of  mankind,  and  retains  it  still  in  heaven,  in  order  to 
his  return,  as  God-man  to  judge  the  world.  But  the  Redemption  and  the  judgment 
finished,  the  ground  of  our  Saviour's  incarnation,  and  all  use  of  his  present  glorious 
body,  will  be  taken  away,  and  therefore  we  cannot  well  suppose,  he  will  eontiuiie  in- 
vested with  a  body, how  glorious  soever  ;  but  may  reasonably  conclude,  he  will  resume 
that  state  of  unclouded  Majesty  and  Glory,  of  pure  unmixed  Divinity,  he  had  w  ith  the 
Father  before  the  world  was." — Broughton  on  Futurity,  p.  327. 


126 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


"  He  who  acknowledges  the  Lord,  and  does  net  at  the  same  time  acknowledge 

the  Divine  Principle  in  his  Human,  does  not  acknowledge  the  Lord  ;  for  the  Di- 
vine Principle  of  the  Lord  is  in  his  Human,  and  not  out  of  it;  for  the  Divine  Prin- 
ciple is  in  the  Human  as  the  soul  is  in  the  body ;  wherefore  to  think  of  the  Hu- 
manity of  the  Lord,  and  not  at  the  same  time  of  his  Divinity,  is  like  thinkincr  of 
a  man  abstractedly  from  his  soul  or  life,  which  is  not  to  think  of  a  man.  That 
the  Divine  Principle  of  the  Lord  is  in  his  Human,  and  that  they  are  together  one 
person,  the  doctrine  received  throughout  the  Christian  world  teaches ;  in  which 
are  these  words  :  '  Although  he  [Christ]  is  God  and  Man,  yet  he  is  not  two,  but 
one  Christ ;  one  not  by  conversion  of  the  Godhead  into  flesh,  but  by  taking  of  the 
Manhood  into  God  :  One  altogether :  not  hy  confusion  of  .substance,  but  by  unity 
of  person  ;  for  as  the  reasonable  soul  and  flesh  is  one  man,  so  God  and  Man  is 
one  Christ'  (See  the  Athanasian  Creed).  Hence  also  it  is  evident,  that  they  who 
distinguish  the  Divine  Principle  into  three  persons,  ought,  when  they  think  of 
the  Lord  as  another  person,  to  think  of  both  together,  of  the  Human,  as  well  as  of 
the  Divine,  for  it  is  said,  that  they  are  one  person,  and  that  they  are  one  as  the 
soul  and  body.  They,  therefore  who  think  otherwise,  do  not  think  of  the  Lord; 
and  they  who  do  not  thus  think  of  the  Lord,  cannot  think  of  the  Divine  which  is 
called  the  Divine  of  the  Father." — A.  E.  10. 

"  '  And  from  Jesus  Christ' — That  hereby  is  signified,  from  the  Lord  as  to  his  Divine 
Humanity,  appears  from  the  consideration,  that  this  was  the  name  of  the  Lord 
in  the  world  :  thus  the  name  of  his  Humanity  :  but,  as  to  his  Divinity,  his  name 
was  Jehovah  and  God.  It  is  called  the  Divine  Humanity,  because  the  Lord  made 
his  Humanity  divine  when  he  was  in  the  world  ;  for  he  united  it  to  his  Divinitj'' 
which  was  in  him  from  conception,  and  which  he  had  as  a  soul  from  the  Father, 
consequently,  which  was  his  life  ;  for  the  soul  of  every  one  is  his  life,  and  the 
body,  which  is  human,  thence  derives  its  life  ;  wherefore,  when  the  Divinity  was 
united  to  the  Humanity  in  the  Lord,  as  the  soul  to  the  body,  it  is  called  the  Di- 
vine Himranity.  They,  therefore,  who  think  of  the  Lord's  Humanity,  and  not  at 
the  same  time  of  his  Divinity,  will  on  no  account  admit  the  phrase  '  Divine  Hu- 
manity :'  for  they  think  separately  of  his  Humanity,  and  separately  of  his  Divi- 
nity, v.-hich  is  like  thinking  of  man  separately  from  his  soul  or  life,  which,  how- 
ever, is  not  to  think  of  a  man  at  all;  still  less  is  it  an  adequate  way  of  thinking 
of  the  Lord.  In  consequence  of  such  a  separate  idea  having  place  in  their 
thought,  they  pray  to  the  Father  to  have  compassion  for  the  sake  of  the  Son; 
when,  nevertheles,  the  Lord  himself  is  to  be  prayed  to  that  he  may  have  com- 
passion, in  whom,  according  to  the  universal  doctrine  of  the  church,  the  divin- 
ity is  such  as  pertains  to  the  Father ;  for  that  doctrine  teaches,  that  as  the  Father, 
so  also  the  Son,  is  uncreate,  infinite,  eternal,  almighty,  God,  and  Lord  ;  and  nei- 
ther is  before  or  after  the  other,  nor  greater  or  less  than  the  other.  This  also  is  in 
accordance  with  the  doctrine  taught  bj  the  Lord  himself,  which  is  :  That  he  and 
the  Father  are  one ;  and  that  he  who  seeth  him  seeth  the  Father,  because  he  is  in 
the  Father,  and  the  Father  in  him;  that  he  is  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life; 
and  that  no  one  cometh  to  the  Father,  but  by  him.  Hence  it  is  evident,  how 
much  they  turn  aside  from  the  way  and  the  truth,  who  pass  by  the  Lord,  and 
immediately  approach  the  Father." — A.  E.  26. 

)  "  The  Lord  is  said  to  be  rejected,  when  he  is  not  approached  and  wor- 
'  shiped  and  also  when  he  is  approached  and  worshiped  only  as  to  his  hu- 
jnau  priaciplej'and  not  at  the  same  time  as  to  his  divine ;  wherefore  at  this 
day  he  is  rejected  by  those  within  the  church  who  do  not  approach  and  wor- 
ship him,  but  pray  to  the  Father  to  have  compassion  on  them  for  the  sake  of 
the  Son,  when  notwithstanding  no  man,  or  angel,  can  ever  approach  the 
Father,  and  immediately  worship  him,  for  the  divinity  is  invisible,  with 
which  no  one  can  be  conjoined  in  faith  and  love ;  for  that  which  is  invisi- 
ble does  not  fall  into  the  idea  of  thought,  nor,  consequently  into  the  affection  of 
the  will :  and  what  does  not  fall  ii:  o  tlie  idea  of  thought,  does  not  fall  into  the 
faith,  for  what  pertains  to  the  iaiti.  ../■st  be  an  object  of  thought;  so  likewise 
what  does  not  enter  into  the  affection  of  the  will,  does  not  enter  into  the  love,  for 
the  things  which  pertain  to  the  love  must  affect  the  will  of  man,  as  all  the  love 
which  man  has  resides  in  the  will.    But  the  Divine  Human  Principle  of  the  Lord 


REPI-Y  TO  DR  WOODS. 


127 


falls  into  the  idea  of  the  thought,  and  thus  into  faith,  and  thence  into  the  adec- 
tion  of  the  will,  or  into  the  love;  hence  it  is  evident  that  there  is  no  conjnnction 
with  the  Father  unless  from  the  Lord,  and  in  the  Lord.  This  the  Lord  himself 
teaches  very  clearly  in  the  Evangelists  ;  as  in  John  :  '  No  one  hath  seen  God  at 
any  time;  the  only  begotten  Son,  who  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  he  hath 
declared  him'  (i.'l8).  Again:  'Ye  have  neither  heard  his  voice  at  any  time, 
nor  seen  his  shape'  (v.  37).  And  in  Matthew:  '  Neither  knoweth  any  man  the 
Father  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son  will  reveal  him  '  (xi.  27). 
Hence  it  is  plain,  that  the  Lord  is  rejected  by  those  within  the  church,  who  im- 
mediately approach  the  Father,  and  pray  to  him  to  have  compassion  for  the  sake 
of  the  Son;  for  these  caunotdo  otherwise  than  think  of  the  humanity  of  the  Lord, 
as  of  the  humanity  of  another  man,  thus  not  at  the  same  time  of  his  Divinity  in 
tlie  humanity,  and  still  less  of  his  Divinity  conjoined  with  his  humanity,  as  the 
soul  is  conjoined  with  the  body.  On  such  occasions,  they  think  not  of  one  God, 
but  of  two  or  three.  To  think  thus  concerning  the  Lord  is  to  reject  him ;  for  not 
to  think  of  his  divine  principle  in  conjunction  with  his  human,  is  by  separation 
to  exclude  the  divine,  which  nevertheless  are  not  two  persons  but  one  person, 
and  make  a  one  as  soul  and  body." — A.  E.  114. 

If  such  then  be  the  real  internal  character  of  this  belief,  its  moral  influence 
must  be  sufRciently  deleterious  to  authorise  a  very  severe  sentence  against  it ; 
and  whether  this  can  be  justly  entitled  to  the  epithet  of  "  uncharitable  and  ex- 
clusive in  a  shocking  degree,"  I  leave  it  to  your  calm  reflection  to  judge.  The 
real  question  is,  whether  what  he  affirms  respecting  the  character  of  the  belief 
is  true. 

It  would  give  me  pleasure,  did  my  limits  allow,  to  enter  much  more  largely 
into  the  developments  of  Swedenborg's  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  But  it  will  suf- 
fice for  the  present  to  have  shown,  that  the  barely  naked  assertion  that  he  de- 
nies the  common  tenet  of  three  persons  in  one  God  is  by  no  means  adequate  to 
produce  the  conviction  of  his  error  on  this  point.  It  is  far  from  being  refuted 
by  being  simply  presented  as  in  antagonism  with  the  popular  belief  Whenever 
you  have  more  to  say  in  the  negative,  I  shall  probably  have  quite  as  much  more 
to  offer  in  the  affirmative. 

III.  The  Atonement^"  He  discards  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  which  most 
Christians  regard  as  the  most  distinguishing  and  precious  doctrine  of  revelation." ' 
If  your  meaning,  in  this  indictment,  is  what  it  ought  to  be  from  the  veritable 
grounds  on  which  it  rests,  it  is  simply  that  Swedenborg  discards  the  established 
and  prevalent  view  of  the  Atonement,  but  not  the  Atonement  in  itself  considered  ;  in 
other  words,  he  does  not  discard  the  Atonement  absolutely,  under  every  form 
and  aspect.  But  if  this  be  your  meaning,  it  is  certainly  most  unhappily  worded, 
and  in  a  way  calculated  to  do  great  injustice  to  him,  and  in  him  to  truth  itself. 
As  the  expression  is  entirely  unqualified,  the  reader  ignorant  of  the  facts  is  ne- 
cessarily led  to  infer  that  Swedenborg  recognizes,  in  no  sense  whatever  the  doc- 
trine of  Christ's  mediatorial  and  atoning  work,  whereas  nothing  can  be  farther 
from  the  truth.  It  is  perpetually  insisted  on  throughout  the  whole  extent  of  his 
writings,  as  the  grand,  cardinal,  indispensable  requisite  to  the  salvation  of  the 
saved.  I  admit  at  once  that  it  is  not  the  form  of  the  doctrine  which  has  obtained 
currency  in  the  Christian  world  that  Swedenborg  sets  forth ;  neither  is  his  doc- 
trine of  the  Resurrection  the  same  in  form  with  that  usually  taught ;  but  would 
you  on  this  account  feel  authorised  to  say,  that  he  absolutely  rejects  this  doctrine  ? 
Does  he  not  teach  a  resurrection  of  some  kind  ?  Indeed,  I  perceive  upon  recurring 
to  a  subsequent  page  that  you  speak  on  this  head  in  a  more  guarded  manner ; — 


128 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


"  S'vedenborg  rejects  the  common  doctrine  of  the  resurrection."  Why  then  should 
you  not  feel  required  by  the  same  sense  of  justice  to  say; — "He  discards  the 

. ":  tommon  doctrine  of  the  Atonement .'"  The  question  is  obviously  one  of  interpret- 
■.  n  ation,  and  every  view  of  Christian  doctrine  which  professes  to  found  itself  on  a 

^--'fair  interpretation  of  the  Sacred  Oracles  is  entitled  to  be  met  upon  the  same 
ground. 

,  ^  Nothing,  I  think,  is  more  evident  than  that  the  prevalent  theory  of  Atonement 
is  inseparably  interwoven  with  the  prevalent  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  That 
theory  teaches  that  the  second  Person  of  the  Trinity,  assuming  human  nature, 

^  an  atonement  or  satisfaction  to  the  inexorable  justice  of  the  first  Person. 

-  To  this  Swedenborg  and  his  adherents  object,  that  it  is  impossible,  on  good 
grounds,  to  make  such  an  ideal  separation  of  the  attributes  of  the  Supreme 
Divinity,  as  shall  warrant  this  peculiar  penal  and  vicarious  scheme  of  redemption. 
As  Christ  is  Jehovah,  and  whatever  Trinity  there  is,  is  to  be  recognized  as  con- 
centered in  Jehovah,  we  find  no  basis  for  such  a  special  inter-relation  of  Divine 
^  Persons  or  Functions  in  the  economy  of  Salvation.  As  the  very  essence 
of  the  Deity  is  Love  and  Mercy  we  find  ourselves  utterly  precluded  from  the  re- 
cognition of  any  such  attribute  o{  avenging  justice  as  is  fundamentally  involved  in 
the  established  tenet;  nor,  inasmuch  as  Jesus  Christ  is  himself  the  Supreme  and 
Only  Jehovah,  do  we  know  of  any  higher  being  in  the  universe  to  whom  such 
an  atonemejit  or  satisfaction  can  be  made.  Jf  then  there  is  no  other  God  than 
the  Saviour,  to  whom  did  he  atone  It  was  not  one  person  only  in  the  Godhead 
(allowing  the  distinction)  who  was  offended,  but  the  whole;  how  then  comes 
it  that  while  the  Father  required  an  atonement,  neither  the  Son  nor  the  Spirit 
united  in  this  demand  And  how  could  the  Son,  who  was  equally  an  ofTended 
party  with  tlie  Father,  become  surety  for  man,  while  the  Father  could  not  because 
he  was  an  offended  party  Again  then  we  ask,  if  Christ  is  Jeliovali,  to  whom 
did  lie  make  the  Atonement.'  Did  he  make  it  to  Himself?  If  so,  upon  what 
principle  does  it  become  available  to  the  salvation  of  the  sinner.'  This  is  a 
.  question  to  which  we  do  not  anticipate  an  answer. 

The  truth  is,  the  whole  scheme  is  so  indissolubly  connected  with  the  prevalent 
Tri-personal  tenet  that  it  cannot  stand  without  it.  hi  rejecting  that  tenet  Sweden- 
borg  of  necessity  rejects  the  vicarious  nature  of  the  atonement,  and  by  holding 
forth  the  attribute  oi  justice  as  merely  one  form  of  the  Divine  Love,  removes  the 
very  substratum  or;  which  it  rests.  There  is  no  such  attribute  as  that  of  abstract 
justice  armed  against  the  oflender  and  requiring  to  be  propitiated  by  a  sacrifice. 

The  following  remarks  by  the  well  known  author  of  the  Hoiae  SolituruB  are  in 
perfect  harmony  with  the  teachings  of  Swedenborg  on  this  head. 

"The  Divine  Nature  could  not  be  contaminated  by,  nor  hold  communion  with, 
a  sinful  nature :  and  therefore  there  ensued  a  separation  of  God  from  man,  A\'iiicli, 
having  every  dreadful  consequence  to  the  latter,  is  expressed  by  the  wriuli,  ab- 
horrence, vengeance,  judgment,  &c.  of  God, — terms  adapted  to  the  workings  and 
capacities  of  the  human  mind,  and  used  to  mark  out  its  entire  alienation  (with 
the  sad  effects  of  it)  from  its  Maker.  There  is  no  wrath  in  God,  as  wrath,  be- 
cause He  is  wholly  love ;  but  his  separation  nf  man  from  the  participation  of  his 
love,  with  all  its  various  blessings,  operates  upon  the  Inunan  passions,  now  de- 
filed with  enmity,  under  the  notions  and  impressions  of  anger  and  indignation. 
Thus  God  s  love,  being  jiure  and  unapproachable  by  sin,  becomes  a  most  dread- 
ful and  even  horrible  attribute  to  a  sinner,  because,  as  a  sinner,  he  can  never 
come  nigh  to  God,  never  hold  communion  with  him,  uor  receive  delight  or  bles- 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


129 


sedness  from  him.  And  if  divine  wisdom  had  not  found  a  method  of  reconcili- 
ation, human  nature  would  and  must  have  sustained  whatever  can  be  conceived 
under  the  awful  idea  of  damnation,  or  the  state  of  absolute  rejection  from  the 
presence  of  God.  By  these  considerations  it  might  appear,  were  it  necessary  to 
extend  them,  that  enmity,  sin,  wrath,  and  misery,  with  other  words  of  the  like 
import^  are  all  correlative  terms,  which  only  variously  express  the  nature  or  ef- 
fects of  man's  alienation  from  God,'  &c.  '  On  the  other  hand,  the  word  love  is 
also  correlative,  and  entirely  connected  with  every  other  divine  attribute  and 
perfection,  or  with  whatever  may  be  called  by  those  names:  it  has,  and  can 
have,  no  difference  from  them,  however  distinguished  by  a  merciful  condescen- 
sion, for  the  better  comprehension  of  our  minds.  Righteousness,  for  instance,  is 
only  a  name  for  this  love  in  act  and  exercise  ;  for  the  love  of  God  in  its  energies 
does  only  what  is  right  or  righteous.  Love  is  the  motive  of  all  his  actions,  ac- 
V  cordmg  to  the  Scriptures ;  and  by  communicating  this  love,  he  renders  it  the 
essential  principle  of  all  righteous  action  in  man  (John  iii.  16  ;  1  Cor.  xiii.  4,  &c). 
Truth,  purity,  and  the  like,  are  also  but  love  in  particular  forms,  actions,  or  as- 
pects. In  short,  all  the  attributes  and  perfections  of  the  Divine  Nature  have  their 
essence  in  love,  and  the  term  love  is  but  a  glorious  title  for  the  grand  assemblage 
of  them,  denominating  (as  the  Bible  hath)  the  first  and  supreme  nature.  God  is 
love,  then ;  uniting,  as  in  that  one  attribute,  all  the  other  predicaments  and  glories 
of  his  majesty  and  goodness,  not  per  accidens,  but  in  essentiality ;  and  with  respect 
to  his  creatures,  there  is  ncr  grace  nor  act  of  righteousness  but  what  is  an  emana- 
tion from  the  same  principle,  enlivening,  invigorating,  and  making  them  happy.' " 
— Hor.  Solit.,  Art.  love. 

The  object  to  be  accomplished  in  the  counsels  of  the  Divine  Clemency,  is  the 
restoration  and  reconciliation  of  man's  alienated  heart  to  his  Maker.  So  long 
as  this  enmity  continues  it  will  operate  to  work  an  internal  consciousness  of  op- 
position between  the  soul  and  its  Divine  Source.  Being  placed  by  his  moral 
state  in  a  posture  of  antagonism  with  the  perfections  of  Jehovah,  the  s'mnei  feels 
the  Divine  Love  itself  to  be  to  him  an-  attribute  of  consuming  wrath-  But  the  Lord's  love 
is  Love  still ;  its  nature  is  not  changed  ;  and  what  atonuig  sacrifice  does  Love  de- 
mand To  say  that  this  Love  is  felt  by  sinful  man  as  avenging  Justice  is  but 
another  form  of  saying  that  the  Divine  Love  appears  to  him  as  avenging  Justice 
or  wrath,  and,  consequently,  as  we  have  already  seen  that  the  language  of  Scrip- 
ture is  constructed  very  much  on  the  principle  of  appearances,  we  find  numerous 
passages  which  savor  indeed  in  the  letter  of  the  spirit  of  an  angry  Deity,  prompt- 
ed by  vindictive  Justice,  but  as  we  rise  above  the  literal  semblances  of  truth  into 
its  essential  reality,  this  apprehended  attribute  of  Jehovah  disappears  and  is 
lost  in  that  of  Love.  By  the  same  process  the  dogma  of  Atonement,  as  ^Dopu- 
larly  held,  disappears  likewise,  and  nothing  remains  but  that  of  acttud  recon- 
ciliation, which  is,  in  fact,  the  true  Scriptural  idea  of  Atonement. 

I  will  here  adduce  a  few  paragraphs  from  "  Law's  Spirit  of  Love,"  a  work 
which,  notwithstanding  its  occasional  sprinklings  of  mysticism,  contains  a  vein 
of  the  strongest  reasoning  in  regard  to  the  true  nature  and  grounds  of  the  Atone- 
ment which  I  have  any  where  seen  out  of  the  New  Church  writings. 

"  The  doctrine  of  the  atonement  made  by  Christ,  and  the  absolute  necessity  and 
real  efficacy  of  it,  to  satisftj  the  righteousness,  or  justice  of  God,  is  the  very  ground 
and  foundation  of  christian  redemption,  and  the  life  and  strength  of  every  part 
of  it.  But  then,  this  very  doctrine  is  so  far  from  favoring  the  opinion  of  a  wrath 
in  the  Deity  itself,  that  it  is  an  absolute  full  denial  of  it,  and  the  strongest  of  dem  - 
onstrations,  that  the  wrath  or  resentment,  that  is  to  be  pacified,  or  atoned,  cannot 
possibly  be  in  the  Deity  itself. 

9 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  VvWDS. 


"  For  this  WTatli,  that  is  to  be  atoned  and  padjied,  is,  in  its  whole  irature,  nothing 
else  but  sin,  or  disorder  in  the  creature.  And  when  sin  is  extinguished  in  the  crea- 
ture, all  the  wratli  that  is  between  God  and  the  creature,  is  fully  atoned.  Search 
all  the  Bible,  from  one  end  to  the  other,  and  j'ou  will  find,  that  the  atonement  of 
that,  which  is  called  the  divine  wrath  or  justice,  and  the  extinguishing  of  sin  in 
the  creature,  are  only  different  expressions  for  one  and  the  same  individual  thing. 
And,  therefore,  unless  you  will  place  sin  in  God,  that  wrath  that  is  to  be  atoned 
or  pacified,  cannot  be  placed  in  him. 

"  The  whole  nature  of  our  redemption  has  no  other  end,  but  to  remove,  or  ex- 
tinguish the  viTcith  that  is  between  God  and  man.  When  this  is  removed,  man 
is  recoruiled  to  God.  Therefore,  u-fiere  the  wrath  is,  or  where  that  is  which  wants 
to  be  atoned,  there  is  that  which  is  the  blameable  cause  of  the  separation  between 
God  and  man  ;  there  is  that  which  Christ  came  into  the  world  to  extinguish,  to 
quench,  or  atone.  If,  therefore,  this  wrath,  which  is  the  blameable  cause  of  the 
separation  between  God  and  man,  is  in  God  himself ;  if  Christ  died  to  atone,  or 
extinguish  a  -^vrath  that  was  got  into  the  holy  Deity  itself,  then  it  must  be  said, 
that  Christ  made  an  atonement  for  God  and  not  for  man ;  that  he  died  for  the 
good  and  benefit  of  God,  and  not  of  man :  and  that  which  is  called  our  redemption, 
ought  rather  to  be  called  the  redemption  of  God,  as  saving  and  delivering  him, 
and  not  man,  from  his  own  math.  This  blasphemy  is  unavoidable,  if  you  sup- 
pose that  wrath,  for  which  Christ  died,  to  be  a  wrath  in  God  himself. 
.  "  Again,  the  very  nature  of  atonement,  absolutely  shows,  that  that  which  is  to  be 
atoned,  cannot  possibly  be  in  God,  nor  even  in  any  good  being.  For  atonement 
.  implies  the  alteration,  or  removal  of  somethmg  that  is  not  as  it  ought  tjo  be.  And 
therefore,  every  creature,  so  long  as  it  is  good,  and  has  its  proper  state  of  good- 
ness, neither  wants,  nor  can  admit  of  any  atonement,  because  it  has  nothing  in 
it  that  wants  to  be  altered,  or  taken  out  of  it.  And  therefore,  atonement  camiot 
"possibly  have  any  place  in  God,  because  nothing  in  God  either  wants,  or  can  re- 
ceive alteration;  neither  can  it  have  place  in  any  creature,  but  so  far  as  it  has 
lost,  or  altered  that  which  it  had  from  God,  and  is  fallen  into  disorder;  and  then, 
that  which  brings  this  creature  back  to  its  first  state,  which  alters  that  which  is 
wrong  in  it,  and  takes  its  evil  out  of  it,  is  its  true  andjiropcr  atonement.  ' 

"  Water  is  the  proper  atonement  of  the  rage  of  fire ;  and  that  which  changes  a 
tempest  into  a  calm,  is  its  true  atonement.  And,  thercfc«-e,  as  sure  as  Christ  is  a 
propitiation  and  an  atonement,  so  sure  is  it,  that  that  which  he  does,  as  a  propiti- 
ation and  atonement,  can  have  no  place  but  in  altering  that  evil  and  disorder, 
which,  in  the  state  and  life  of  tlie  fallen  creature,  wants  to  be  altered. 

"  Hell,  urath,  darkness,  misery,  and  eternal  death, mem  the  same  thing  through  all 
scripture,  and  these  are  the  only  things  from  which  we  want  to  be  redeemed : 
and  where  there  is  nothing  of  hell,  there,  there  is  nothing  of  urath,  nor  any 
thing  that  wants,  or  can  admit  of  the  benefits  of  the  atonement  made  by  Christ. 
Either,  therefore,  all  hell  is  in  the  essence  of  the  holy  Deity,  or  nothing  that  wants 
to  be  atoned  by  the  merits  and  tleath  of  Christ,  can  possibly  be  in  the  Deity 
itself. 

"  The  apostle  saitli,  that '  we  are  by  nature,  children  of  v/rath  ;'  the  same  thing 
as  when  the  Psalmist  saitli, '  I  was  shapeii  in  wiclcedness,  and  in  sin  hath  my 
mother  conceived  me.'  And,  therefore,  that  wrath,  which  u-auts  the  atonement 
of  the  sufferings,  blood,  and  death  of  Christ,  is  no  other  than  that  sin,  or  sinful 


i 

I 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


131 


Steele  in  which  we  are  naturally  born.  But  now,  if  this  wrath  could  be  supposed 
to  be  in  the  Deity  itself,  then  it  would  follow,  that  by  '  being  by  nature,  children 
of  wrath,'  we  should  thereby  be  the  true  children  of  God,  we  should  not  want 
any  atonement,  or  new  birth  from  above,  to  make  us  partakers  of  the  divine  nature, 
because  that  wratli  tliat  was  in  us,  would  be  our  dwcliiug  in  God,  and  he  in  us. 

"  Again,  all  scripture  teaches  us  that  God  wills  and  desires  the  removal,  or  ex- 
tinction of  that  wrath,  which  is  betwixt  God  and  the  creature ;  and  therefore,  all 
scripture  teaches,  that  the  wath  is  not  in  God ;  for  God  cannot  will  the  removal, 
or  alteration  of  anything  that  is  in  himself;  this  is  as  impossible,  as  for  him  to 
will  the  extinction  of  his  own  omnipotence.  Nor  can  there  be  anything  in  God, 
contrary  to,  or  against  his  own  will :  and  yet,  if  God  wills  the  extinction  of  a 
wrath,  that  is  in  himself,  it  must  be  in  him,  contrary  to,  or  against  his  own  will. 

"  This,  I  presume,  is  enough  to  show  you,  that  the  atonement  made  by  Christ, 
is  itself  the  gi-eatest  of  all  proofs,  that  it  ^vas  not  to  atone  or  extinguish  any  wrath 
in  the  Deity  itself;  nor,  indeed,  in  any  way  to  affect,  or  alter  any  quality,  or  tem- 
per in  the  divine  mind,  but  purely  and  solely  to  overcome,  and  remove  all  that 
death,  and  hell,  and  wrath,  and  darkness,  that  had  opened  itself  in  the  nature, 
birth,  and  life  of  fallen  man." — Law's  Spirit  of  Love,  p.  67-7] 

The  grand  purpose,  as  we  have  remarked,  of  tlie  Divine  Mercy  is  the  re-con- 
junction of  the  sundered  soul  of  man  with  Jehovah,  the  only  source  of  Life  and 
Bliss.  But  how  was  this  to  be  effected  In  the  nature  of  the  case  it  could  not 
be  by  the  substitution  of  an  intermediate  being  between  the  Creator  and  the  crea- 
ture, who  should  take  upon  himself  the  penalty  due  to  sin,  for  there  neither  is 
nor  can  be  such  a  being  in  the  universe,  and  even  if  there  were,  it  is  impossible 
to  show  how  the  translation  of  punishment  from  the  guiity  to  the  innocent  satis- 
fies the  demands  of  Justice,  whose  language  is,  "  The  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall 
die."  Nor  have  I  ever  seen,  in  all  the  multitudinous  volumes  and  tractates  which 
have  come  under  my  eye  in  reference  to  the  current  doctrine  of  the  Atonement, 
any  clear  development  of  the  precise  mode  in  which  the  expiatory  work  of 
Christ  is  made  to  redound  to  the  benefit  of  the  sinner.  We  are  not  told  how  it  is 
that  the  satisfaction  satisfies.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  rather  represented  as  an  ulti- 
mate fact  in  the  moral  history  of  the  universe,  into  the  rationale  of  which  it  is  not 
proper  to  push  inquiry. 

Still  the  question  recurs.  How  is  man  to  be  again  conjoined — brought  to  at-one- 
ment — with  his  Maker,  from  whom  he  has  become  separated  by  sin This 
question  can  only  be  answered  by  first  attaining  a  correct  view  of  the  state  to 
which  man  had  reduced  himself  by  his  iniquities,  for  as  the  Atonement  was  in- 
tended to  remedy  the  consequences  of  the  apostacy,  the  means  employed  must 
be  such,  in  their  own  nature,  as  to  answer  this  end.  Now  notliing  is  more  evi- 
dent from  the  irafallible  oracles,  than  the  fact  of  the  existence  and  agency  of  evil 
spirits,  and  that  these  spirits  live  and  act  in  conjunction  with  the  ruling  loves  of 
man ;  for  likeness  of  affection  necessarily  conjoins,  while  contrariety  of  affection 
necessarily  dissevers.  While  man  retained  his  primeval  purity,  he  was  united 
to  God  by  loving  and  abiding  in  good.  By  forsaking  good  and  imbibing  the 
love  of  evil,  he  became  separated  from  God,  and  from  the  same  cause  became 
conjoined  with  the  infernal  spirits,  who  were  in  similar  loves.  He  thus  render- 
ed himself  liable  to  be  acted  upon,  tempted,  governed,  made  captive,  and  bound 
by  them,  as  a  complete  minion  of  hell.    From  this  fearful  bondage  he  was  mia- 


132 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


ble  to  liberate  himself,  for  no  being  can  directly  will  opposite  to  a  dominaiit  evrl 
love.    In  these  circumstances,  the  paramount  evil  in  man  and  the  power  of  hell 
mutually  strengthened  each  other.    Delighting  in  his  chains,  they  were  contin- 
ually drawn  closer  and  closer  around  him,  till  a  voluntary  release  became  utterly 
hopeless.    The  ever  merciful  Jehovah  still  purposed  his  recovery,  but  this  could 
not  be  effected  except  by  his  deliverance  from  the  thraldom  of  the  infernal  hosts 
by  whom  he  had  been  enslaved.    But  an  immediate  approach,  by  the  ardors  of  the 
Infinite  Love,  either  to  fallen  spirits  or  fallen  men  would  have  been  followed  by 
their  instant  destruction.    In  this  sense  it  is  emphatically  true,  that  "  God  out  of 
Christ  is  a  consuming  fire."    The  bright  and  burning  beams  of  the  Sun  of  Heaven 
must  be  shrouded  and  tempered  through  some  interposmg  medium  ere  they  can 
safely  penetrate  to  the  infernal  abyss  and  reach  the  inmost  spirits  of  its  tenants. 
T>In  this  emergency  the  assumption  of  the  Human  by  the  Divine  was  the  sublime 
■  resort.    Jehovah  became  incarnate  and  by  clothing  himself  with  our  nature,  in 
^,its  lowest  principles  and  at  the  very  extreme  of  its  infirmities  and  degradation, 
")put  himself  into  the  capacity  of  entering  into  combat  with  the  powers  of  hell 
and  by  receiving  into  himself  and  overcoming  their  temptations,  to  achieve  the 
very  victory  v/hich  was  requisite  for  man's  deliverance  from  then  chains.  This 
then  was  the  first  great  work  of  his  mediation — the  subjugation  of  the  hells  in 
',his  own  Divino-human  person,  and  the  removal  from  man  of  their  soul-destroy- 
•  ing  influences,  to  such  a  degree  as  to  render  him  capable,  by  the  aid  of  the  di- 
vine influx,  of  counter- willing  their  hellish  promptings  and  of  a  new  reception 
,  of  Truth,  Goodness,  and  celestial  Life.    This  was  the  essence  of  the  Atonement, 
,  which  in  the  nature  of  things  could  be  of  no  efficacy  except  so  far  as  it  resulted 
[lin  adud  reconciliation.    The  passion  of  the  cross,  so  far  from  havmg  concentred 
,!  in  it  the  chief  and  essential  virtue  of  the  Atonement,  was  merely  the  last  stage — 
j'the  closing  scene — of  temptation  and  combat  in  which,  during  his  whole  earthly 
^ijlife,  the  Divine  Redeemer  was  engaged.    The  blood-swealing  at  Gethsemane, 
j'and  the  blood-shedding  at  Calvary,  were  but  part  and  parcel  of  the  same  atoning 
'|jwork  which  he  was  all  the  time  accomplishmg  from  the  manger  to  the  tomb. 
In  this  process  of  combat  and  conqu(^st,  and  running  parallel  with  it,  was  the 
progressive  Glorification  of  our  Lord's  Human  nature,  which  is  faintly  imaged 
forth  in  the  onward  course  of  man's  regeneration.    Every  victory  achieved  was 
an  advancement  of  the  Human  towards  the  Divine,  just  as  with  the  regenerating 
Christian  every  accession  to  his  spiritual  graces  is  a  real  bringing  down  of  the 
divine  principles  into  the  ultimates  of  his  earthly  and  corporeal  nature,  and  a 
consequent  lifting  up  or  sublimation  of  that  nature  to  a  likeness  to  the  divine, 
which  must  necessarily  result  in  the  glorification  even  of  his  "  body  of  vileness." 
But  this  point  is  developed  with  so  much  clearness  and  the  whole  i^olity  of  Atone- 
ment set  forth  in  so  striking  a  manner  by  Tslx.  Noble  in  his  recent  volume  of  doc- 
trinal Lectures,  that  I  shall  draw  upon  his  pages  for  a  better  view  of  the  subject 
than  I  could  myself  present. 

"The  true  view  of  the  doctrine  of  Atonement,  that  is,  Agreement  or  Recon, 
ciliation,  is  this ;  That  by  the  assumption  of  human  nature  by  Jehovali  in  the 
person  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  oppo.'sitiou  or  contrariety  which  previously 
exi.sted  between  man  and  God  was  removed,  first  in  his  own  assumed  Humanity 
and  then,  by  the  influence  of  his  Spirit  proceeding  from  his  Humanity  when 


I 


I 


\ 


I 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


fully  glorified  and  united  to  the  Essential  Divinity,  in  those  who  should  acknow- 
ledge him  and  accept  his  mercies.  The  sacrifice  of  Jesus  Christ  consisted  in 
the  total  sanctification  and  dedication  of  his  human  nature,  till  it  was  entirely 
assimilated  to  his  Divine  Nature,  rendered  itself  Divine,  and  made  the  proper 
organ  for  the  indwelling  of  the  whole  fullness  of  the  Godhead,  and  for  the  exer- 
cise of  all  the  energies  of  the  Divine  Omnipotence;  just  as  man's  body  is  the 
proper  organ  for  the  indvuelling  of  the  soul,  and  for  the  exercise  of  all  the  powers 
belonging  to  the  compound  man.  By  our  salvation  by  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ, 
is  meant,  in  a  natural  sense,  by  his  death  :  without  which  we  could  not  have 
been  saved,  because  without  it  his  Humanity  could  not  have  been  glorified ; 
it  being  absolutely  necessary  that  the  merely  human  life  should  be  extin- 
guished before  the  purely  Divine  life  could  descend  and  take  its  place.  And 
the  Mediation,  Intercession,  and  Advocateship  of  Jesus  Christ,  include,  both 
the  access  which  is  afforded  for  man  to  God  by  the  Medium  of  the  Glorified 
Humanity  of  Jesus  Christ;  and  the  communication  from  God  to  man,  by  the 
same  blessed  Medium,  of  all  the  gifts  necessary  to  his  salvation.  Thus  most 
true  it  is,  that  by  the  assumption  and  glorification  of  his  Humanity,  He  made 
atonement  for  us, — that  is,  effected  agreement  between  man  and  God,  by  cloth- 
ing Himself  with  a  Divine  Manhood  and  uniting  this  with  the  Essential  Godhead,  . 
and  bv  enabling  created  man  to  desist  from  that  which  was  the  cause  of  his 
separation.  The  prophet  says, '  It  is  your  iniq^uities  which  have  separated  be-^ 
tween  you  and  your  God :' — the  removal  then  of  these  iniquities,  and  the  receg- 
tion  by  man  of  heavenly  grace,  from  God  to  adorn  his  mind  in  their  place,  is 
the  making  of  an  atonement,  an  at-one-ment  oi  agreement.  This  would  ever  have 
been  impossible,  had  not  the  Lord  presented  the  graces  of  his  Spirit  in  a  form, 
and  with  a  power,  capable  of  reaching  man  in  the  state  of  separation  in  which 
he  stood  ;  and  this  could  only  be,  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  or  divine  influence,  pro- 
ceeding from  his  Divine  or  Glorified  Human  Person.  Before,  then,  such  a  Holy 
spirit  could  be  given,  or  such  a  divine  influence  be  imparted,  it  Avas  necessary 
that  the  Humanity  should  be  assumed  by  the  Lord,  and  united  to  the  Divinity. 
That  the  consequence  of  this,  to  those  who  look  to  the  Lord  in  this  his  form  of 
accommodation  to  their  state,  would  be,  the  communication  of  every  grace  ne- 
cessary to  their  reception  of  spiritual  life,  is  declared  by  the  Lord  when,  in  a  sub- 
lime passage  quoted  in  a  former  Lecture,  He  '  stood  and  cried'  (as  it  is  expressed, 
to  denote  the  ardor  of  his  Divine  Love,  and  the  earnestness  of  his  desire  for  man's 
salvation),  'If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me,  and  drink  :' — to  thirst,  is 
ardently  to  desire  the  truths  of  salvation :  to  go  to  Jesus,  is  to  apply  to  Jehovah 
in  his  Humanity  as  their  only  Source  :  and  to  drmk,  is  to  receive  and  appropri- 
ate them.  The  effect  hereof,  m  enlightening  the  mind  and  imparting  spiritual 
life.  He  expresses  by  going  on  to  say, '  He  that  believeth  on  me,  as  the  Scripture 
hath  said,  out  of  his  belly  shall  flow  rivers  of  living  water ;'  which  the  evange- 
list explains  by  adding,  '  This  spake  he  of  the  Spirit,  which  they  who  believe  on 
him  should  receive  :  for  the  Holy  Ghost  was  not  yet,  because  that  Jesus  was  not 
yet  glorified.'  If  then  his  glorification,  which  took  place  at  his  resun-ection  and 
ascension,  and  of  which  his  death,  as  to  the  maternal  humanity,  was  a  neces- 
sary preliminary,  was  requisite  for  the  impartation  of  the  saving  mercies  here 
offered,  how  easy  is  it  to  see  what  was  the  nature  of  the  Atonement  thus  ac- 
complished ! — namely,  agreement  or  concord  between  God  and  man,  effected  by 


134 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


the  removal  of  the  enmity  in  man's  heart,  by  the  communication  of  that  spiritual 
drink,  which  the  Lord  here  declares  is  to  be  received  from  his  Glorified  Human- 
ity,— that  is,  of  tliose  graces  of  the  Spirit,  that  living  water,  which  the  evangelist 
affirms  could  not  be  given  till  his  Humanity  was  glorified." — Nobles  Lectures,  p. 
378-380. 

Such  then  is  the  view  of  the  Atonement  presented  in  the  Theology  of  the  New 
Church.  While  it  ignores  the  common  theory  of  substituted  punishment,  it  recog- 
nizes and  insists  upon  the  absolute  and  mdispensable  necessity  of  the  Lord's  as- 
sumption of  human  nature  and  of  his  suffering  and  dymg/or  us — in  our  behalf— 
but  not  in  our  stead.*  We  recognize  the  Lord  in  his  Humanity,  as  a  real  sacri- 
fice offered  for  us,  to  effect  atonement  or  reconciliation  between  man  and  God,  as 
Jesus  says,  "for  their  salces  I  sanctify  myself;"  and  as  Paul  declares,  "  Christ  our 
Passover  is  sacrificed  for  us :"  not  that  the  Father's  anger  required  appeasement 
by  the  sight  of  the  sufferings  of  his  Son,  but  because,  when  the  Humanity  was 
thus  sacrificed,  that  is,  sanctified,  and  united  to  the  Essential  Divinity,  the  divine 
influences  were  accommodated  to  man's  state,  so  as  to  be  operative  to  the  renew- 
al of  his  heart  and  mind — to  his  sanctification  also.  Thus  "  he  appeared  to  put 
away  sm  by  the  sacrifice  of  himself." 

Let  me  here  remark  that  we  confess  to  no  departure,  in  this  view,  from  what 
the  Scriptures  so  frequently  declare  respecting  our  being  saved  "  by  the  blood  of 
Christ."  So  far  as  "  blood"  stands  as  an  equivalent  for  the  sufferings  and  death  of 
Christ,  which  we  are  taught  to  regard  as  the  appointed  and  indispensable  means  or 
medium  of  our  salvation,  we  fully  recognize  the  great  truth  involved  in  the  expres- 
sion. But  this  is  not  its  dominant  sense  in  our  vocabulary,  nor  do  we  by  any 
means  affix  the  ordinary  ideas  of  the  religious  world  to  the  phrase.  We  cannot 
conceive  of  the  mere  shedding  of  our  Lord's  material  blood  as  making  atone- 
ment for  sin  or  washing  away  its  stains.  We  are  forced  to  read  the  term,  for  the 
most  part,  as  a  symbol  of  some  spiritual  and  divine  principle  which  puts  fortli 
its  efficacy  upon  the  inner  man.  Nothing  can  be  more  palpably  obvious  than 
this  from  the  words  of  the  Saviour  himself.  "  Then  Jesus  said  unto  them,  Verily, 
verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  man,  and  drink  his 
blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you:  Whoso  eateth  my  flesh,  and  drinketh  my  blood, 
hath  eternal  life ;  and  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day:  For  my  flesh  is  meat 
indeed,  and  my  blood  is  drink  indeed  :  He  that  eateth  my  llesh,  and  drinkctli  my 
blood,  dwelleth  in  me,  and  I  in  him." — John  vi.  53-56.    These  passages  we  feel 


*  "  The  God  of  christians  is  so  far  from  being  implacable  and  tetsengefid  that  you  have 
seen  it  proved,  from  text  to  text,  that  the  whole  form  and  manner  of  our  redemption 
comes  wholly  from  the  free,  antecedent,  infinite  love  and  goodness  of  God  towards 
fallen  man — that  the  innocent  Christ  did  not  sutler  to  quiet  an  angry  Deity,  but  merely 
as  co-operating,  assisting,  and  uniting  with  that  love  of  God,  which  desired  our  salva- 
tion— that  he  did  not  suffer  in  our  place  or  stead,  but  only  on  our  account,  which  is  quite 
a  different  matter.  And  to  say,  that  he  suffered  in  our  place  or  stead,  is  as  absurd,  as 
contrary  to  Scripture,  as  to  say,  that  ho  rose  from  the  dead,  and  ascended  into  heaven, 
in  our  place  and  stead,  that  wc  miglit  be  excused  from  it.  For  his  sufferings,  death,  res- 
urrection, and  ascension,  are  all  of  them  equally  on  our  account,  for  our  sake,  for  our 
good  and  benefit,  but  none  of  them  possibly  to  be  in  our  stead. 

"And  as  scripture  and  truth  allirin,  that  he  ascended  into  heaven /or  us,  though  nei- 
ther scripture  nor  truth  will  allow  it  to  be  in  our  place  and  stead :  so,  for  the  same  rea- 
sons, it  is  strictly  true,  that  he  suffered,  and  died /or  tt»,  though  no  more  in  our  place  or 
stead,  nor  any  more  desirable  to  be  so,  than  his  ascension  into  heaven  for  us  should  bo 
in  our  place  and  stead." — Law's  Spirit  of  Love,  p.  96. 


(J 


I 

* 


REPLY  TO  DK  WOODS. 


135 


ourselves  authorized  to  make  a  general  standard  of  interpretation  for  other  pas- 
sages which  declare  the  dependence  of  our  salvation  upon  the  blood  of  Christ. 
We  are  saved  by  a  blood  which  can  be  drank.  So  also  in  regard  to  a  multitudinous 
class  of  kindred  jiassages  which  ascribe  our  salvation  to  the  sufferings  and 
death  of  Christ — which  speak  of  the  ransom  that  he  paid  for  us — which  refer  us 
to  the  stripes  and  wounds  iullicted  upon  him  by  which  we  are  healed — and  which 
teach  us  to  glory  in  his  cross.  All  such  language  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the 
above  view  of  Christ's  mediatorial  and  atoning  work,  because  everything  of  this 
nature  entered  into  that  economy  of  means  by  which  our  recovery  from  sin  and 
death  was  to  be  effected.  And  we  hesitate  not  to  say  that  the  diversity  of  appli- 
cation in  regard  to  this  term  which  obtains  iu  the  various  defences  of  the  popu- 
lar dogma  of  Atonement  is  wholly  unwarranted.  On  what  grounds  are  the  plain 
declarations  of  our  Lord  in  the  Gospels  to  be  strained  to  accommodation  with  the 
occasional  apostolic  usage  rather  than  the  reverse We  perceive,  I  repeat,  no 
violence  done  to  the  true  import  of  the  Word  by  our  construction.* 

T  regret  that  my  limits  do  not  admit  of  a  more  extended  detail  of  the  various 
features  of  the  scheme  of  Atonement  as  presented  by  Swedenboi^.  I  am  aware 
that  your  mind  will  still  be  apt  to  labor  under  some  difficulty  of  apprehension  as 
to  the  precise  manner  in  which  this  doctrine  of  the  progressive  Glorification  of 
our  Lord's  Humanity  bears  upon  the  process  of  regeneration  in  the  souls  of  the 
saved.  But  deeper  reflection  will  probably  lead  to  a  clear  perception  of  the 
fact,  that  the  requisite  renewing  influence  which  is  to  implant  the  Divine  Life  in 
the  soul  of  man  could  only  emanate  from  God  as  man,  and  though  this  influence 
is  in  ordinary  theological  parlance  ascribed  to  the  Holy  Spirit  as  a  Person,  yet 
you  will  scarcely  fail  to  conclude,  that  it  is  in  fact  nothing  else  than  the  Divine 
vivifying  Sphere  proceeding  from  the  Glorified  Humanity  of  God-man  Mediator, 
who,  as  the  second  Adam,  becomes  the  true  source  and  fountain  of  spirituallife 
as  really  as  the  first  Adam  was  to  the  race  the  author  of  natural  life.f  You  wii' 
consequently  perceive  that  the  grand  character  of  this  scheme,  so  to  term  ii, 
is,  that  it  makes  the  whole  matter  of  Atonement  essentially  subjective.    It  divests 

*  "  Made  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb." — In  the  literal  sense  of  the  Word, 
by  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  is  understood  the  passion  of  the  cross,  but  in  the  internal  or 
.spiritual  sense  is  understood  the  divine  truth  proceeding  from  the  Lord;  for  by  this  man 
is  purified  from  falsities  and  evils,  that  is,  his  garments  are  made  white.  The  passion 
of  the  cross  was  the  last  temptation  of  the  Lord,  by  which  he  fully  subjugated  the  hells, 
and  glorified  his  humanity  ;  which  tilings  being  accomplished  and  completed,  the  Lord 
sent  the  Comforter,  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  by  which  is  understood  the  divine  truth  proceed- 
ing from  his  glorified  humanity,  as  the  Lord  himself  teaches  in  John  (vii.  39).  The 
same  truth  is  taught  by  the  Lord  in  many  other  parts  of  the  Word.  By  this,  therefore, 
namely,  by  divine  truth,  when  ic  is  received,  man  is  reformed  and  regenerated  by  the 
Lord,  and  saved,  but  not  (merely)  by  the  shedding  of  blood  on  the  cross." — A.  E.  476. 

+  "  The  matter  stood  thus ;  the  seed  of  all  mankind  was  in  the  loins  of  fallen  Adam. 
This  was  unalterable  in  the  nature  of  the  thing,  and  therefore  all  mankind  must  come 
ibrth  in  his  fallen  state.  Neither  can  they  ever  be  in  any  state  whatever,  whether 
earthly  or  heavenly,  but  by  having  an  earthly  man,  or  a  heavenly  man,  for  their  father. 
For  mankind,  as  such,  must  of  all  necessity  be  born  of,  and  have  that  nature  which  it  hath, 
from  a  man.  And  this  is  the  true  ground  and  absolute  necessity  of  the  one  Mediator, 
the  man  Christ  Jesus.  For  seeing  mankind,  as  such,  must  have  that  birth  and  nature 
which  they  have,  from  }nan,  seeing  they  never  could  have  had  any  relation  to  paradise, 
or  any  possibility  of  partaking  of  it,  but  because  they  had  a  paradisical  man  for  their 
father  ;  never  could  have  had  any  relation  to  this  earthly  world,  or  any  possibility  of  being 
born  earthly,  but  because  they  had  an  earthly  man  for  their  father  ;  and  seeing  all  this 
must  be  unalterably  so  lor  ever,  it  plainly  follows,  there  was  an  utter  impossibility  for 
the  seed  of  Adam  ever  to  come  out  of  its  fallen  state,  or  ever  have  another,  or  better 


136 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


it  entirely  of  the  aspect  of  a  merely  extraneous  tmd.  forensic  transaction — son  of 
governmental  commutation — a  certain  something  \VTought  in  honor  of  abstract  law/ 
the  effects  of  which  are  judicially  accounted  to  the  benefit  of  the  penitent  offender. 
In  a  word  it  comes  near  to  making  what  you  would  probably  term  the  application 
of  the  Atonement  to  be  the  Atonement  itself.    It  views  it  incessantly  in  the  most  in- 

*  dissoluble  connection  with  the  life  which  it  imparts.  The  Atonement  can  scarce- 
ly be  said  to  exist  for  him  who  is  not  positively,  by  means  of  it,  reconciled  to  God 
by  becoming  partaker  of  the  love  of  God.  Its  object  was  not  so  much  to  take 
away  the  punishment  of  sin  by  suffering  its  penalty,  as  to  destroy  the  power  of 

,  sin  and  to  infuse  a  new  and  divine  life  into  the  soul.  By  the  view  now  pre- 
sented we  can  see  how  it  is  that  the  Atonement  has  this  effect.  On  the  common 
view  I  believe  it  to  be  impossible  to  obtain  a  perfectly  clear  apprehension  of  the 
mode  in  which  Christ's  Atonement  is  made  available  to  salvation  ;  and  accord- 
iiigly  Dr.  Magee  himself,  the  champion  of  the  orthodox  doctrine,  remarks; — "  I 
know  not,  nor  does  it  concern  me  to  know,  in  what  manner  the  sacrifice  of  Christ 
is  connected  with  the  forgiveness  of  sin."  To  ixs  it  is  the  very  climax  of  all  the- 
ological paradoxes,  that  we  are  called  to  receive  and  rest  in  a  scheme  of  salva- 
tion of  the  true  uattu^e  and  grounds  of  which  we  cannot  gain  a  distinct  intellect- 
ual conception.  If  others  think  it  their  duty  to  content  themselves  with  a  mere 
implicit  faith  in  a  matter  involving  interests  so  vast,  we  do  not. 

From  what  has  now  been  said  you  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  convinced  of  one 
thing— the  immense  diversity  of  the  Atonement  taught  by  Swedenborg  from  that 
exhibited  in  most  of  the  Christian  schools  with  which  you  are  familiar.  This 
is  too  palpable  to  need  further  enlargement  at  my  hands.  I  will  leave  it  for 
Swedenborg  himself  to  display  it  in  his  own  language. 

"  Wliat  doctrine  doth  more  abound  in  the  books  of  the  orthodox  at  this  day, 
or  what  is  more  zealously  taught  and  insisted  on  in  the  schools  of  divinity,  or 
more  constantly  preached  and  cried  up  in  the  pulpit,  than  this — that  God  the 
Father,  being  full  of  uTath  against  mankind,  not  only  separated  them  from  him- 
self, but  also  sentenced  them  to  universal  damnation,  thus  excommunicated 
them  from  his  favor ;  but  because  he  was  gracious  and  merciful,  that  he  per- 
suaded, or  excited,  his  Son  to  descend,  and  take  upon  himself  the  determined 
curse,  and  thus  expiate  the  wrath  of  his  Father;  and  that  thus,  and  no  other- 
wise, could  the  Father  be  prevailed  upon  to  look  again  with  an  eye  of  mercy  on 
mankind.'  As  also,  that  this  was  effected  by  the  Son,  who,  in  taking  upon 
himself  the  curse  pronounced  against  men  suffered  himself  to  be  scourged  by  the 
Jews,  to  be  spit  upon,  and  lastly,  to  be  cmcified  as  the  accursed  of  Go(If(Deuv  xxi. 
23) ;  and  that  the  Father  was  by  this  means  appeased,  and,  out  of  love  towards 
his  Son,  cancelled  the  sentence  of  damnation,  yet  only  in  favor  of  those  for 
whom  the  Sonsliould  intercede,  who  was  thus  to  be  a  perpetual  Mediator  in  tlie 
,  presence  of  the  Father  These  and  the  like  doctrines  are  at  this  day  trumpeted 
forth  from  the  pulpit,  and  re-echoed  from  the  walls  of  the  temple,  as  sound  is 
re-echoed  m  a  wood,  so  that  the  ears  of  all  present  are  filled  with  it.  But  who, 
that  hath  his  reason  enlightened  and  restored  to  health  by  the  Word,  cannot  see 
that  God  is  mercy  and  clemency  itself,  because  he  is  love  itself  and  goodness 
itself,  and  that  these  constitute  his  essence  ;  and  consequently,  that  it  is  a  con- 
tradiction to  say,  that  mercy  itself,  or  goodness  itself,  can  behold  man  with  an 
angry  eye,  and  sentence  him  to  damnation,  and  still  abide  in  his  own  divine  es- 


life,  than  they  had  from  Adam,  unless  such  a  son  of  man  could  be  brought  inlo  exist- 
ence, as  had  the  same  relation  to  all  mankind,  as  Adam  had,  was  as  much  in  them  all, 
as  Adam  was,  and  had  as  full  power,  acc9rding  to  the  nature  of  things,  to  s^ive  a  heav- 
enly life  to  all  the  seed  in  Adam's  loins,  as  Adam  had  to  bring  thcni  forth  in  earthly 
flesh  and  blood." — Law't  Spirit  of  Love,  p.  114. 


f  1 1  ^  a-"- 


1  C/VO  j>  \ 


i  Lux  f  < 


/A 


f 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


137 


s«nce  ?    Such  dispositions  are  never  ascribed  to  a  good  man  or  an  angel  of  hea- 
ven, but  only  to  a  wicked  man  and  spirit  of  hell ;  it  is,  therefore,  blasphemy  to 
ascribe  them  to  God.    But,  if  we  inquire  into  the  cause  of  this  false  judgment, . 
we  shall  find  it  to  be  this,  that  men  have  mistaken  the  passion  o£lhejcrossJpri?  ,- 
redemption  itself :  hence  liavc  llo^-edl;hose " op ui ion s,  as TaTses  flow  in  a  contin-" 
ffffd  series  troin'one  false  principle  ;  or,  as  from  a  cask  of  vinegar  nothing  but 
vinegar  can  come  forth  ;  or,  as  from  an  insane  mind  we  can  expect  nothing  but 
insanity.    For  one  point  being  taken  for  granted,  the  conclusions  that  arc  made 
from  it  must  be  of  the  same  family,  because  they  are  included  in  it,  and  are 
severally  and  successively  produced  from  it;  and  from  this  one  point  concern- 
ing the  passion  of  the  cross,  as  constituting  the  sum  of  redemption,  many  more 
shocking  and  impious  opinions,  scandalous  and  disgraceful  to  God,  may  still 
take  rise  and  go  forth  into  tlie  world,  until  that  propliecy  of  Isaiah  is  fulhlled,.'; 
wliere  it  is  said, '  The  priest  and  the  prophet  have  erred  through  strong  drink, j^ij  '    ....  . 
ihey  stumble  in  judgment faTTTciBTe's  are  full  of  voniltand  riltliiuess '  (xxviii.  7, 8). a 

"  Frora  thTs' idea  concerning  C'DcTancTredeiTiplion,  the  whole  system  of  theol- 
ogy hath  lost  its  spirituality,  and  is  become  in  the  lowest  degree  natural.  This 
was  the  necessary  consequence  of  ascribing  to  God  merely  natural  properties 
and  attributes;  and  yet  on  the  idea  entertained  of  God,  and  that  of  redemption, 
which  makes  one  with  salvation,  everything  that  hath  relation  to  the  church 
depends.  For  that  idea  is  like  the  head,  from  which  all  parts  of  the  body  are 
derived  ;  when,  therefore,  that  idea  is  spiritual,  everything  that  belongeth  to  the 
churcli  becometh  spiritual  also;  but  when  that  idea  is  natural,  then  everything 
belonging  to  the  church  becomes  natural.  Now,  forasmuch  as  the  idea  of  God 
and  of  redemption  is  become  merely  natural,  that  is,  sensual  and  corporeal,  it 
follows  that  all  those  things  are  merely  natural,  which  the  heads  and  members  of 
the  church  have  maintained,  and  do  maintain,  in  their  systems  and  forms  of 
doctrine.  The  reason  why  that  idea  must  of  necessity  give  birth  to  nothing  but 
falses  is,  because  the  natural  man  is  in  continual  opposition  to  the  spiritual  man, 
and  thus  regardeth  spiritual  things  as  airy  and  visionary  phantasies.  It  may,  there- 
fore.be  truly  said,  that  in  consequence  of  that  sensual  idea  concerning  redemption, 
and  thence  concerning  God,  the  ways  toward  heaven  which  are  those  that  lead 
to  the  Lord  God  the  Saviour,  are  beset  with  thieves  and  robbers  (John  x.  1,8,  9), 
and  that  the  doors  of  the  temple  are  thrown  down,  so  that  dragons  and  owls, 
and  the  tzjim  and  jiitn  have  entered,  and  make  a  concert  of  dreadful  discord. 
That  this  idea  conc-erning  redemption,  and  concerning  God,  pervades  the  faith 
which  prevails  at  this  day  throughout  all  Christendom,  is  an  acknowledged  truth ; 
for_that  faith  requires  men  to  pray  to  God  the  Father,  that  he  would  remit  their^  ■  :  i  cc, 
sins  for  the  sake  of  the  cross  and  blood  of  His  Son ;  and  to  God  the  Son,  that  He 
wouTcI  pray  and  intercede  for  them ;  and  to  God  the  Holy  Ghost,  that  he  would 
justify  and  sanctify  them ;  and  what  is  all  this,  but  to  supplicate  three  distinct^ 
GbcTs,  one  -  after  another  And,  in  such  a  case,  how  can  the  notion  which  the 
mind  forms  of  tHe'divine  government  differ  from  that  of  an  aristocratical  or  hie- 
rarchical government.'  or  from  that  of  the  triumvirate  which  once  existed  at 
Rome,  if  only  instead  of  a  triumvirate  it  be  called  a  tripersonate  And  in  such 
a  government,  what  is  easier  than  for  the  devil  to  put  in  practice  the  old  maxim, 
divide  and  govern  ?  that  is,  to  distract  men's  minds  and  excite  rebellious  notions, 
sometimes  agaiust  one  God,  and  sometimes  against  another,  as  hath  been  his 
practice  since  the  time  of  Arius^to  this  day;  and  thus  to  thrust  the  Lord  God  the 
Saviour  from  His  throne,  '  who  hath  all  power  in  heaven  and  in  earth'  (Matt,  xxviii. 
18),  and  to  exalt  some  creature  of  his  own  in  His  place,  STnd  to  enjoin  men  to 
worship  him,  or,  when  the  folly  of  this  is  detected,  to  destroy  the  worship  of  the 
Lord  Himself  together  with  that  of  the  imaginary  idol." — T.  C.  R.  132. 

^  IV.  Justigmtjon  by  Faith  alone. ^   "  Swedeiiborg  utterly,  discards  the  doctrine  of  . 

justification  by  faith  alone  without  the  deeds  of  the  law : — He  rejects  not  only  the  perver- 
sions of  the  doctrine,  but  the  doctrine  itself — the  doctrine  taught  in  Scripture,  and 
confirmed  by  the  sober  consideration  of  the  most  enlightened  believers,  that  we  ■ 
are  forgiven  and  saved,  not  for  any  works  of  righteousness  which  we  have  done, 
but  by  the  grace  of  God  through  the  blood  of  the  cross;  that  we  are  justi-         '.  'i 


138 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


fied  by  faith  through  the  mediation  of  Christ,  who  died  for  us,  and  bore  our  sins 
in  his  own  body  on  the  tree."  In  a  subsequent  paragraph  you  aim  to  cut  off  all 
retreat  from  the  ground  of  the  broadest  denial  of  the  doctrine  in  its  truest  forms. 

"  It  may  perhaps  be  said,  that  he  meant  only  to  discard  the  doctrine,  that  we 
are  justified  by  a  dead  faith,  a  faith  not  productive  of  good  works.  But  it  is  a 
sufficient  reply  to  this,  that  he  expressly  discarded  the  doctrine  of  justification, 
as  held  by  Luther  and  the  Reformed  Churches,  and  it  is  well  known,  and  he  ought  to 
have  known,  that  this  was  not  the  doctrine  which  they  maintained.  The.  doc- 
trine which  he  opposed  was  the  very  doctrine  which  Paul  taught,  and  which  re- 
sults from  a  just  view  of  man's  sinfulness,  of  the  death  of  Christ,  and  of  salva- 
tion by  grace."— p.  124. 

It  is,  with  the  receivers  of  Svvedenborg,  a  matter  of  very  small  moment  what 
Luther  or  the  Reformed  Churches  may  have  held  upon  this  or  any  other  subject, 
when  we  have  direct  access  to  the  fountain  of  truth,  and  are  competent  to  judge 
for  ourselves  of  its  genuine  teaching.    Nor  should  we  here  feel  at  liberty,  were  we 
forced — as  we  are  not — to  acknowledge  any  conflict  on  this  head  between  Paul 
and  Christ,  to  postpone  the  authority  of  the  former  to  that  of  the  latter.    We  can- 
not consider  ourselves  precluded  from  the  privilege  and  duty  of  viewing  every 
Christian  doctrine  in  the  light  of  its  own  intrinsic  nature,  in  its  just  relations  to 
the  attributes  of  God,  and  in  its  legitimate  bearings  on  the  principles  of  our  mo- 
ral being.    In  all  these  respects  we  are  sure  that  the  genuine  doctrines  taught  by 
the  Saviour  of  men  will  stand  the  most  rigid  ordeal  to  which  they  can  be  sub- 
mitted, and  they,  of  course,  must  be  the  standard  to  whicli  every  other  enunci- 
*  ation,  whether  inspired  or  uninspired,  is  to  be  referred.    As  to  Luther,  the  world 
is  doubtless  very  much  indebted  to  him  for  the  noble  stand  which  he  took  in  op- 
position to  the  errors  and  corruptions  of  the  Roiliish  Church,  but  his  determined 
puqoose  to  break  with  that  Church,  and  to  erect  an  impassable  barrier  between 
Papist  and  Protestant,  caused  him  to  go,  in  one  respect,  too  far.    He  might  have 
performed  an  invaluable  service  to  the  truth  by  reforming  the  error  of  a  Trinity 
of  Divine  Persons,  which  has  poured  a  deluge  of  falsities  over  Christendom,  but 
in  an  evil  hour  he  proclaimed  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone,  as  the 
grand  article  of  a  standing  or  falling  church,  instead  of  that  of  three  Essentials  in 
the  one  Person  of  ouj  Lord,  and  thus  infi.xed  a  pernicious  tenet  in  the  very  heart 
and  core  of  Christianity.    This  will  doubtless  strike  you  as  a  very  heavy  and  al- 
'  most  sacrilegious  charge  ag-ainst  the  memory  of  a  great  and  good  man.    But  I 
abate  nothing  of  the  strength  of  the  assertion.    I  cannot  regard  any  mere  man 
— any  man  left  solely  to  his  own  resources— as  infallible,  and  in  the  case  of  Lu- 
ther and  his  Protestant  followers,  I  scruple  not  to  say  that  they  have  built  their 
doctrine  of  Instification  mainly  on  a  single  passage  of  Paul  (Rom.  iii.  28),  and 
that  too  erroneously  understood ;— "  Therefore  we  conclude*that  a  man  is  justi- 
Jied  by  faill?without  the  deeds  of  the  law."    Here  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  the 
:  word  "  law"  means  the  law  of  the  Decalogue,  the  moral  law,  instead  of  the  cere- 
'monial  la\v,^r  the  Jewish  religion  in  general,  which  is  its  frequent  sense  in  his 
epistles7~AgaTii,~Tt"  Is  assumed'thaf  faith"  imports  the  individual  grace  so 
"  named,  instead  of  the  general  Christian  sijstem,\v\nc\\  is  named  from  one  of  its 
principal  feaiures.     When  he  speaks  of  faith  as  one  of  the  distinguishing 
graces  "of  the  individual  Christian,  he  is  very  far  fromjnaking  it  the  whole 
groundworlc  of  Justification.       Tliough  I  have  all  faith,  so  that  I  could 
Jemove  mountainsj^nd  havej^oLcl]^  This  surely  has  very 


3.      a  lH\,  uvt-  iUc 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  13* 

little  the  air  of  one  who  designs  to  teach  that  man  is  justified  by  faith  alone,    li ) 
is  charity  and  not  faith  which  constitutes  the  foundation  of  a  justified  state.  , 
Thus  again  elsewhere  ;  "And  now  abidethJaith^h9po,  and  charity,  these  three 
but  the  greatest  of  these  is  charifj^'    Here  we  have  the  apostle's  expressly  de- 
clared estimate  of  the  comparative  value  of  the  individual  graces  of  charity  and 
faith.    What  can  be  plainer .'    And  who  can  suppose  that  he  ever  thought  o 
teaching,  ttiat  man  is  to  be  justified  by  the  single  grace  of  frfith,  and  nothing  else 
It  is  clear,  moreover,  that  m  making^  the  apostle  teach  the  exclusive  pre-eminencs^ 
of  faith  when  he  says,  tbat"  a'mau  is  justified  by  faith  withoiUjhe  deeds  of  the 
law,"  it  is  strangely  forgotten  that  the  same  apostle  asserts,  and  in  the  same 
epistle,  tiiar^notthjoji^rers  of  thylaw  are  just  before  God,  bj.it_tl^^ 
law^]^a]gbejustified.">:  Does  the  apostle  contradict  hlm^seif  ?  Or  are  we  notforcedj 
rather  to  the  inference,  that  there  is  something  more  requisite  to  constitute  a  jus- 
tified state  than  mere  faith?    The  truth^ is,  we  are,  as  we  conceive,  correctly^ 
tai3ght  that  the  distinction  so  studiously  insisted  upon  in  the  Protestant  creeds  be- ' 
tween  justification  and  sanctification  is  little  else  than  a  theological  fi,cfcion._  We, , 
at  least,  are  unable  to  perceive  any  essential  ditference  in  the  interior  nature 
the  two.    To  justify      ascribed  to  God,  is  to  make  just,  to  sanctifii\s  to  make  holy. 
How  does  the  justice  or  righleousncss  of  a  Christian  differ  from  his  holiness  ?  ^ 
la  all  that  we  have  above  said  respecting  the  teachings  of  Paul  on  this  subject, 
we  regard  him  as  hlld  ing  and  inculcating  a  doctrine  precisely  in  accordance 
with  that  of  the  Saviour  himself.    The  tenor  of  His  announcements  uniformly  is,f 
that  man  is  to  be  judged  by  the  character  of  his  works,  and  his  works  are  the  faith -J 
ful  index  of  his  life  or  love,  which  if  good  is  tire  very  essence  of  charity.    It  is  by^ 
this  principle  that  he  is  saved,  and  by  no  other  principle  can  he  be  justified  than 
that  by  which  he  is  saved.    I  adduce  the  following  out  of  hundreds  of  passa- 
ges speaking  the  same  language. 

"  '  Every  tree  which  buingeth  not  forth  good  fruit,  is  hewn  down,  and  cast 
into  the  fire'  (Matt.  vii.  19,  20,  21).  '  He  that  niceiveth  seed  into  the  good  ground, 
is  he  that  heareth  the  Word,  and  understandeth  it,  which  also  beareth  fruit, 
BRiNGETH  FORTH  '  (Matt.  xiii.  9  to  23).  '  Jcsus  said.  My  mother  and  My  breth- 
ren are  they  which  hear  the  Word  of  God,  and  do  it'  (Luke  viii.  21).  We  know 
that  God  heareth  not  sinners,  but  if  any  man  be  a  worshijaer  of  God,  and  doeth 
His  will,  him  He  heareth'  (John  ix.  31).  'If  ye  know  these  things,  happy  are 
ye  if  ye  do  them'  (John  xiii.  17).  '  He  that  hath  My  commandments,  and  doetpi 
THEM,  he  it  is  that  loveth  Me,  and  I  will  love  him,  and  will  manifest  Myself  to 
him'  (John  xiv.  15  to  22).  'Herein  is  My  Father  glorified,  that  ys  bear  much 
fruit'  (John  XV.  8.  16).  '  Not  the  hearers  of  the  law  are  just  before  God,  but 
THE  doers  of  the  L.A.W'  (RoHi.  ii.  13 ;  James  i.  22).  '  God,  in  the  day  of  wrath, 
and  of  just  judgment,  will  render  to  every  man  according  to  his  works'  (Rom.  ii. 
4,6).  '  For  we  must  all  appear  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ,  that  every 
one  may  receive  the  things  done  in  his  body,  according  to  that  he  hath  done, 
whether  it  be  good  or  bad'  '(2.  Cor.  v.  10).  '  The  Son  of  Man  shall  come  in  the 
glory  of  His  Father,  and  then  He  shall  reward  every  one  according  to  his  works' 
(Matt.  xvi.  27).  'I  heard  a  voice  from  heaven  saying  unto  me.  Write,  blessed 
are  the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord  from  henceforth ;  yea,  saith  the  Spirit,  that 
they  may  rest  from  their  labors,  and  their  works  do  follow  them'  (Rev.  xiv.  13). 
'  A  book  was  oj^ened,  which  is  the  book  of  life,  and  the  dead  were  judged  ac- 
cording to  those  things  which  were  written  in  the  books,  all  according  to  their 
works'  (Rev.  XX.  12).  '  Behold,  I  come  quickly,  and  My  reward  is  with  Me,  to 
give  eveiy  man  according  to  his  work'  (Rev.  xxii.  12).  'Jehovah,  whose  eyes 
are  open  upon  all  the  ways  of  the  sons  of  men,  to  give  every  one  according  to 
his  ways,  and  according  to  the  fruit  of  his  doings'  (Jer.  xxxii.  19).    'I  will  pun- 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


ish  them  for  their  ways,  and  visit  upon  them  for  their  doings'  (Hosea  iv.  9). 
'  According  to  our  ways,  and  according  to  our  doings,  so  hath  he  dealt  with  us' 
(Zech.  i.  6)." 

What  can  be  plainer  from  all  this,  than  that  a  man's  worlcs  or  doings,  the  natural 
product  and  expression  of  his  internal  state  as  to  love,  are  indispensable  requi- 
sites in  the  article  of  Justification  ?  Can  it  be  for  a  moment  supposed  that  judg- 
ment shall  hereafter  be  regulated  according  to  man's  works,  while  those  works  have, 
at  the  same  time,  nothing  in  them  to  affect  judgment,  consequently  neither  to 
justify  nor  condemn.'  To  justify,  v/hen  spoken  of  a  human  judge,  is  to  pro- 
nounce just  in  view  of  evidence.  When  spoken  of  God,  who  needs  no  evidence, 
but  reads  the  heart,  it  denotes  to  pronounce  just  on  the  ground  of  being  made 
just.  It  is  with  Him  a  judgment  according  to  truth,  and  to  suppose  that  all  this 
proceeds  simply  on  the  naked  ground  of  faith  is  to  contravene  the  whole  tenor 
of  Scripture,  as  well  as  to  set  aside  the  clearest  perceptions  of  the  human  mind. 
It  is  nothing  short  of  the  rankest  Solifidianisra— an  error  which  lias  pervaded 
what  are  termed  the  evangelical  churches  to  their  very  core,  and  is  continually 
working  out  the  most  deplorable  evils  in  legionary  multitude.  You  will  be  at 
liberty  to  complain  of  this  as  an  unjust  and  unchristian  sentence  when  the  truth 
of  my  position,  theologically  considered,  is  disproved. 

Indeed  I  am  forced  for  myself  to  believe  that  in  the  controversy  be- 
tween the  Catholics  and  the  Protestants  on  this  doctrine  of  Justification, 
the  advantage  redounds  beyond  all  question  to  the  former.  I  speak  of 
course  of  the  Catholic  doctrine  as  theoretically  and  not  as  practically  held. 
*^he  following  contrasted  view  of  the  two  schemes  is  taken  from  "  Moehler's 
Symbolism."  "  The  notions  which  the  Protestants  form  of  justification,  is 
.thus  briefly  defined  in  the  Formulary  of  Concord :  '  The  word  "  justifica- 
tion" signifies,  the  declaring  any  one  just,  the  acquitting  him  of  sins,  and  the  eter- 
nal chastisements  of  sin,  on  account  of  tlie  justice  of  Christ  which  is  by  God 
imputed  to  faith ;  and  it  expressly  says,  our  justice  is  not  of  us.  With  these  dec- 
^larations  Calvin  perfectly  coincides.  Justification,  in  the  Protestant  sense,  is  a 
^'judicial  act  of  God,  whereby  the  believing  sinner  is  delivered  from  the  punish- 
ments of  sin,  but  not  from  sin  itself:  \vhile  Catholics  teach  that,  on  one  hand, 
the  remission  of  sin,  the  debt  as  well  as  the  penalty,  and  on  the  other  hand,  po- 
'  sitivesanctification,  follows  in  a  like  way,  through  the  divine  act  of  justification. 
The  great  difference  between  the  Confessions  consists,  accordingly,  in  this, — that, 
according  to  the  Catholic  doctrine,  the  justice  of  Christ,  in  the  act  of  justification, 
is  immediately  appropriated  by  the  believer,  becoming  part  of  his  inward  self, 
and  changing  his  whole  moral  existence  ;  while,  according  to  the  Protestant  sys- 
tem, justice  remains  in  Christ,  passes  not  into  the  inward  life  of  the  believer,  and 
remains  in  a  purely  outward  relation  to  him  ;  covering  his  injustice,  not  only  past, 
but  still  outstanding,  since  by  justification  the  will  is  not  healed.  We  therefore 
may  say,  according  to  Catholic  principles,  Christ,  by  justification,  stamps  in- 
wardly and  outwardly  his  living  impress  on  the  believer;  so  that  the  latter, 
though  a  feeble  and  imperfect,  becometh  yet  a  reel,  copy  of  the  type.  On  the 
other  hand,  according  to  the  Protestant  doctrine,  Christ  casts  on  the  believer  his 
shadow  only,  under  which  his  continued  sinfulness  is  merely  not  observed  by 
God.  Hence  the  explicit  remark  of  the  Formulary  of  Concord,  that  the  faithful, 
on  account  of  the  obedience  of  Christ,  arc  looked  upon  as  just,  although  by  vir- 


I 


0  b  t*.  f  '^r 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  141 


■j'  tue  of  corrupt  nature  they  be  truly  sinners,  and  remain  such  even  unto  death.' 
V  — Moehler's  Symbolism,  p.  194. 


That  Swedenborg's  view  of  the  doctrine  is  much  more  in  accordance  with  the 
Catholic  than  the  Protestant,  is  beyond  question.    If  this  fact  shall  of  itself  be 
deemed  sufficient  to  condemn  it,  I  am  sure  the  sentence  will  be  pronounced  by 
men  of  narrow  minds,  who  arc  incompetent  to  see  any  truth  where  they  cannot 
but  see  a  great  deal  of  error. 
~>     One  who  has  been  conversant,  as  I  have  been,  with  the  distinguishing  doctrines 
^  termed  doctrines  of  grace,  among  evangelical  Christians,  will  of  course  anticipate 
^  the  objection  that  will  at  once  utter  itself  against  what  I  have  now  advanced.  It 
proceeds  upon  a  total  disregard  of  the  great  principle  of  Atonement  by  which  the 
demands  of  the  law  were  satisfied  by  the  death,  sufferings,  and  merit  of  Christ, 
and  an  everlasting  righteousness  by  this  means  brought  in,  the  imputation  of 
which  to  the  believer  is  the  only  possible  ground  of  his  Justification — an  impu- 
tation which  is  received  by  faith  alone,  as  otherwise  it  could  not  be  of  grace. 
This  grand  cardinal  principle  you  understand  Swedenborg  as  denying,  and  in 
this  you  are  undoubtedly  correct,  as  the  system  which  he  has  propounded  knows  Q 


nothing  of  any  such  scheme  of  diplomatic  redemption  as  shall  save  man  by  a 
yi        putative  transfer  of  moral  character.   It  declares  this  scheme  to  be  not  only  in 
•  J  .c   the  highest  degree  unscriptural  and  unreasonable,  but  intrinsically  impossible. . 
fJ         "  That  the  merits  of  the  Lord,"  says  Swedenborg,  "  are  imputed  to  men,  which 
1     u    doctrine  is  maintained  at  the  present  day,  is  an  entire  impossibility ;  the  merits 
\         of  the  Lord  are  in  general  two — first,  that  of  having  subjugated  the  hells, 
^  ^   and  second  that  it  glorified  His  Humanity,  or  of  having  made  it  divine ;  these 
^    >3    merits  could  not  possibly  be  imputed  to  any  man,  for  they  are  infinite  and  di- 
vine ;  but  by  them  the  Lord  has  acquired  the  power  of  saving  all  them  who  come  ^  r^ . 
^|J     1    unto  Him,  who  address  their  worship  and  prayers  to  Him,  and  who  examine  ~" 
Q    themselves,  and  shun  all  evils  they  experience  in  themselves  as  sins  against 
^  iGod."    The  doctrine  of  the  New  Church  is,  that  "  he  that  doeth  righteousness  is  I 
^righteous."    It  sees  no  possibility  of  one's  being  saved  by  a  righteousness  which- 
I    -    lis  merely  imputed  without  being  appropriated,  nor  can  it  conceive  it  of  such  ap- 
ropriation  by  fajth  alone  without  the  co-operation  of  loy^,  and  consequently  it 
knows  nothing  of  a  justification  in  which  simple  faith  is  the  only  principle  con- 
cerned.   Still  it  acknowledges  no  merit  in  the  act  of  loving  affiance  by  which  the 
soul  cleaves  to  Christ  as  a  Savioi^r.    It  is  all  the  fruit  of  his  abounding  grace  and ' 
goodness — all  the  result  of  his  mediatorial  life,  sufferings,  and  death.    If  we  be- 
lieve, love,  and  obey,  it  is  solely  because  we  receive  from  Him  the  ability  to  dO' 
it.    And  is  not  this  putting  honor  upon  his  offices  and  giving  Him  the  full  glory  • 
of  our  salvation  ?    How  otherwise  shall  we  do  it If  this  view  of  the  subject  is 
deemed  derogatory  to  anything  He  has  wrought  in  our  behalf,  may  I  ask  in 
what  respect  ?    As  we  are  very  tender  upon  the  point  of  rendering  all  due  honor 
and  glory  to  our  Divine  Redeemer,  we  would  fain  be  informed  in  what  particular 
any  one  of  our  tenets  comes  short  of  it. 

It  would  seem  that  you  intended  to  utter  a  very  emphatic  condemnation  of 
Swedenborg's  teachings  on  this  subject  when  you  say,  that  "  he  expressly  dis- 
carded the  doctrine  of  Justification,  as  held  by  Luther  and  the  Reformed  Churches, 
and  it  is  well  known,  and  he  ought  to  have  known,  that  this  was  not  the  doc- 
trine which  they  maintained."   If  you  wdl  read  the  tre'atise  entitled  "Brief  Ex- 


V  )k 


1112 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


position,"  I'think  you  will  be  forced  to  admit,  that  if  there  ever  was  a -man  who 
understood,  to  their  minutest  tittle,  the  peculiar  and  distinguishing  doctrines  of 
the  Reformers  on  this  subject,  and  the  precise  shades  of  their  difference  from 
the  Romish  formularies,  that  man  was  Swedenborg.  The  work  in  question 
is  an  elaborate  cxamcn  of  the  precise  points  of  difference  between  the  Romish 
and  Protestant  symbols  of  faith,  and  for  acute  discrimination  and  masterly  analy- 
sis, it  is  unrivalled.  A  body  of  flesh  was  never  more  skillfully  dissected  by  the 
scalpel. of  the  anatomist  than  is  the  body  of  divinity  contained  in  these  two 
creeds  by  the  pen  of  our  author.  The  conclusion  to  which  he  comes  is  thus 
stated,  after  quoting  largely  from  the  Augsburg  Confession. 

"What  nation  is  there  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,  possessed  of  religion  and 
sound  reason,  that  does  not  know  and  believe,  that  there  is  one  God,  and  that  to 
tlo  evils  is  contrary  to  Him,  and  that  to  do  good  is  well  pleasing  to  Him,  and 
that  man  must  do  this  from  his  soul,  from  his  heart,  and  from  his  strength,  al- 
though it  is  by  influx  from  God  ;  E.nd  that  herein  consists  religion     Who  there- 
fore does  not  see,  that  to  confess  three  Persons  in  the  Godhead,  and  to  assert  that 
in  good  works  there  is  nothing  of  salvation,  i§  to  separate  religion  from  the 
<:;hurch     Yet  so  it  is  asserted  in  these  words,  '  That  faith  justifies  without  good 
works,'  '  that  works  are  not  necessary  to  salvation,  nor  to  faith,  because  salva- 
tion and  faith  are  neither  preserved  nor  retained  by  good  works,'  consequently, 
that  there  is  no  bond  of  conjunction  between  faith  and  good  works  :  it  is  indeed 
said  afterwards,  '  that  gcod  works  nevertheless  follow  faith,  as  fruit  is  produced 
from  a  tree,'  but  then  let  us  ask,  who  does  them,  nay,  v.-ho  thinks  of  them,  or 
who  is  spontaneously  led  to  perform  them,  while  a  person  knows  or  believes 
that  they  do  not  at  all  contribute  to  salvation,  and  also,  that  no  one  can  do  anjr 
good  thing  towards  salvation  of  himself,  and  so  on  ?    If  it  be  alleged  that  the 
leaders  of  the  church  have  still  conjoined  faith  with  good  works,  it  may  be  said 
in  reply,  that  this  conjunction,  when  closely  inspected,  is  not  conjunction,  but 
mere  adjunction,  and  this  only  like  a  superfluous  appendage,  that  neither  co- 
heres nor  adheres  in  any  other  manner  than  as  a  dark  background  to  a  portrait 
which  serves  to  set  oft'  the  figure  represented,  and  give  it  more  the  appearance 
of  life :  it  may  be  said  further,  that  inasmuch  as  religion  has  relation  to  life, 
and  this  consists  in  good  works  according  to  the  truths  of  faith,  it  is  evident  that 
real  religion  is  the  portrait  or  figure  represented  of  itself,  and  not  the  mere  shady 
appenda'je ;  yea,  that  when  good  works  are  regarded  as  such  an  appendage, 
they  must  be  reputed  by  many  as  of  no  more  account  than  the  tail  of  a  horse, 
which,  as  contributing  nothing  to  the  horse's  strength,  may  be  cut  off  at  pleasure. 
Who  can  rationally  conclude  otherwise,  while  he  xmderstands  such  expressions 
as  these  according  to  their  obvious  meaning:  '  That  it  is  a  folly  to  imagine  that 
the  works  of  the  second  table  of  the  Decalogue  justify  in  the  sight  of  God,'  and 
these  :  '  That  if  any  one  believes  he  shall  therefore  obtain  salvation,  because  he 
hath"  charity,  he  brings  a  reproach  upon  Christ;'  as  also  these:  'That  good 
works  arc  utterly  to  Ibe  e.xcluded,  in  treating  of  justification  and  eternal  life;' 
with  more  to  the  same  purpo.^e  .'    Who,  therefore,  when  he  reads  afterwards, 
that  good  works  necessarily  follow  faith,  and  that  if  they  do  not  follow,  the  faith 
is  a  false  and  not  a  true  faith,  with  more  to  the  same  purpose,  attends  to  it.'  or 
if  he  attends  to  it,  understands  wliether  such  good  works  are  attended  with  any 
perception  or  consciousness Yet  good  which  proceeds  from  man  without  his 
having  a  perception  or  consciousness  of  it,  has  no  more  life  in  it  than  if  it  came 
from  a  statue.  *  But  if  we  inquire  more  deeply  into  the  rise  of  this  doctrine  it 
will  appear  as  though  the  leading  Reformers  first  laid  down  faith  alone  as  their 
rule,  in  order  that  they  might  be  severed  from  the  Roman  Cutholics,  as  mentioned 
above,  and  that  after'wards  they  adjoined  thereto  the  works  of  charity,  that  their 
system  might  not  appear  to  contradict  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  but  have  the  sem- 
blance of  religion,  and  thus  be  salved  over." — Brief  Expos,  p.  46. 

The  question  now  arises  whether  this  is  a  just  and  true  exhibition  of  tlie  Prot- 
estant doctrine  on  this  head.  If  not,  in  what  respects  is  it  erroneous What  is 
the  real  relation  which  works  bear  to  faith  in  the  matter  of  Justification .»  Do 


ll 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


143 


works  contribute  anything  towards  placing  the  sinner  in  a  justified  state  ?   If  so, 
how  is  it  that  a  man  is  justified  by  faith  alone  ?    If  they  are  not  brought  into  the 
account  in  this  transaction,  how  has  Swedenborg  misrepresented  the  doctrine  ? 
And  what  am  I  to  understand  by  the  terms  of  your  own  explicit  charge,  that  he 
"  utterly  discards  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone  without  the  deeds  of  the 
law  ?"    If  you  regard  him  as  in  error  on  this  head,  it  can  only  be  because  you,  at 
least,  exclude  everything  but  faith  from  the  requisites  to  Justification.    Is  this  the 
fact  ?    Do  you  maintain  that  Charity,  or  works  of  charity,  have  absolutely  noth- 
ing to  do  in  the  process  by  which  a  man  is  declared  to  be  Just  in  the  sight  of  God 
If  not— if  you  contend  for  something  more— what  is  it,  and  what  is  its  precise  re- 
lation to  the  justifying  faith .'    What,  moreover,  do  you  mean  by  saying  that 
the  doctrine  which  Swedenborg  discards  is  not  the  doctrine  taught  by  Luther 
and  the  Reformers     Did  not  Luther  deny  that  charity,  or  works  of  charity,  had 
/anything  to  do  with  a  believer's  Justification  ?    Hear  his  own  words.  "Ourf 
[papists  and  sophists  have  taught  the  like,  to  wit,  that  we  should  believe  in 
)  Christ,  and  that  faith  was  the  ground-work  of  salvatioai ;  but,  nevertheless,  that ' 
^this  faith  could  not  justify  a  man,  unless  it  were  the  fides  foi-mata;  that  is  to  say, 
unless  it  first  received  its  right  form  from  charity.    Now  this  is  not  the  truth, 
sbutanidle,  fictitious  illusion,  and  a  false,  deceitful  misrepresentation  of  the  Gos- 
*  pel.   On  this  account,  what  the  senseless  sophists  have  taught  respecting  the ' 
Ifidesformata,  that  is  to  say,  the  faith  which  should  receive  its  true  form  and  shape 
■  from  charity,  is  mere  idle  talk.    For  that  faith  alone  justifies  which  apprehends 
Christ  by  the  word  of  Scripture,  and  which  adorns  or  decorates  itself  with  Him,^ 
'^and  not  the  faith  which  embraces  charity." — (If oris.  Part  1,  p.  47.  Ed.  Wittemberg.) 
This  is  certauily  very  explicit,  and  much  more  of  a  like  stamp  could  easily  be 
drawn  from  the  same  source.    I  cannot  but  ask,  then,  how  Swedenborg  has 
misrepresented  the  doctrhie,  and  if  he  has,  what  is  the  doctrine,  in  its  true  char- 
acter, which  is  to  be  considered  as  adopted  by  the  Protestant  churches     I  wish 
to  know  whether  they  adhere  to  the  Augsburg  Confession,  the  Formula  Con- 
cordice,  which  teaches  that  good  works,  which  are  said  freely  and  spontaneously 
to  follow  faith,  and  are  called  the  fruits  of  faith,  the  works  of  the  Spirit,  and  the 
works  of  grace,  and  which  are  performed  in  a  state  of  justification,  have  no  real 
connexion  with  faith,  and  accordingly  do  not  contribute  at  all  to  salvation.  Is 
it  your  belief  that  these  works  are  merely  the  signs  and  manifestations  of  a  justify- 
ing faith,  but  not  entering  at  all  into  its  essence  and  efficacy I  can  truly  say, 
that  I  am  exceedingly  anxious  for  light  on  this  point,  for  in  no  department  of  Prot- 
estant Theology,  excepting  perhaps  that  of  the  Trinity,  do  I  find  myself  so  beset 
with  mystery  and  confusion  as  in  regard  to  the  fundamental  principle  of  a  sin- 
ner's Justification.    On  the  one  hand,  it  is  ascribed  to  faith  to  the  exclusion  of 
Avorks,  or  of  the  moral  element  from  which  good  works  proceed ;  on  the  other, 
it  is  said  it  must  not  be  a  dead  faith,  or  a  faith  not  productive  of  such  works. 
But  a  dead  faith  is  not  properly  any  faith  at  all,  and  no  one  supposes  a  man  can 
be  justified  without  a  faith  that  is  alive.    But  what  is  it  that  constitutes  the  life 
of  faith — such  a  faith  as  actually  produces  Justification     Is  it  not  love  or  charity, 
and  is  not  this  element  to  be  taken  into  account  in  the  justifying  function  of 
faith  ?*   Is  not  its  exclusion  like  ascribing  a  moral  character  to  an  act  of  the 


*  "Tliat  faith,  separate  from  charity,  is  not  faith,  is  because  faith  is  the  light  of  man's 
life,  and  charity  is  the  heat  of  his  hfe  ;  wherefore,  if  charity  is  separated  from  faith,  it 


144 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


I  body  with  wliich  the  soul  has  nothing  to  do  ?    What  is  a  mere  intellectual  belief 
(  of  the  truth,  however  strong  or  confident,  which  is  not  pervaded  and  vitalised 
I  by  the  affection  of  love     And  what  a  strange  anomaly  must  it  be  in  the  Divine 
proceedings  to  account  a  man  just  in  the  absence  of  the  only  principle  which 
can  make  him  just  .'—to  insist  upon  a  faith  which  can  only  be  aliving  because  it 
is  a  loving  faith,  and  yet  exclude  from  consideration  the  very  love  which  is  its 
life It  must  be  confessed  that  we  encounter  a  very  strange  theology  in  the  ac- 
credited doctrine  of  Justification.    While  it  is  in  one  breath  strenuouslj'  maintain- 
ed that  the  faith  which  justifies  must  be  united  with  charity  and  good  works,  or 
it  is  dead  and  worthless,  yet  in  the  next  it  is  contended  that  these  principles  do 
not  conspire  to  the  result,  but  that  it  is  effected  by  one  of  them  singly,  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  the  others  !    But  look  for  a  moment  at  the  intrinsic  necessity  of  the 
^•case.    Man  is  composed  of  three  grand  constituent  principles,  viz.  Affection,  or 
^K^WiU-priiiciple,  by  which  he  can  love  God  and  his  neighbor ;  Understanding,  by 
which  he  can  discern  what  the  love  of  God  and  his  neighbor  requires  of  him ; 
and  Operation  or  Action,  by  which  he  can  bring  into  outward  effect  what  his  will 
chooses  and  his  understanding  dictates.    Now  since  these  three  parts  or  princi- 
*ples  together  constitute  the  man,  and  not  any  of  them  singly,  or  in  separation  from 
the  others,  therefore  no  man  can  be  said  to  be  justified,  or  made  just,  until  he  be 
renewed  in  all  those  several  parts  or  principles  of  his  constitution  according  to 
justice,  that  is  to  say,  according  to  the  pure  love  of  God  and  his  neighbor.  This 
is  the  doctrine  of  Justification  according  to  Swedenborg,  for  establishing  which 
you  intimate  that  he  was  driven  to  such  straits  of  interpretation  as  to  lay  him 
under  a  kind  of  necessity  of  rejecting  the  Apostolic  Epistles.    "  It  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  see  that  he  must  have  found  many  parts  of  the  Acts  and  the  Epistles  very 
hard  to  be  moyllded  according  to  his  system.    It  must  have  been  a  severe  and 
comfortless  task  for  him,  with  all  his  learning,  and  with  all  the  help  he  had  from 
angels,  to  do  away  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  from  the  writings  of  Paul, 
and  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  from  the  writings  of  Paul,  Peter,  and  John. 
Indeed  the  Epistles  generally,  in  their  obvious  meaning,  are  so  much  at  variance 
with  the  scheme  of  Swedenborg,  that  he  could  not  consistently  do  otherwise 
than  reject  them." — p.  129.    Again,  "  It  is  not  strange  that  Swedenborg,  with  his 
view  of  the  subject,  and  acting  as  he  thought  under  a  divine  commission,  should 
think  unfavorably  of  the  Apostolic  Epistles,  and  exclude  them  from  tlie  word 
of  God."— p.  124. 

Now  granting  this,  for  tlie  sake  of  the  argmnent,  to  be  true,  ho  \v  far  does  it  differ 
from  the  conduct  of  this  same  venerated  Luther,  whom  you  vaunt  as  the  cham- 

is  as  when  heat  is  separated  from  light;  thence  the  state  of  man  becomes  such  as  the 
state  of  the  vorld  is,  in  llic  lime  of  winter,  when  all  the  things  upon  the  earth  die. 
Charity  and  faith,  that  charity  may  be  charity,  und  faith  may  be  faitli,  can  no  more  be 
separated,  than  the  will  and  the  understanding;  and  if  these  are  separated,  the  under- 
standing becomes  nothing,  and  presently  also  the  will :  the  reason  why  it  is  similar  with 
charity  and  faitli,  is,  because  charity  resides  in  the  will,  and  faith  in  the  understanding. 
To  separate  charity  from  faith,  is  like  separating  essence  from  form  :  it  is  known,  in  the 
.learned  world,  that  cssenco  without  (brm  and  form  without  essence  is  not  anything;  for 
_    essence  has  no  quality  except  from  form,  nor  is  form  any  subsisting  entity,  except  from 
essence;  consequently,  there  is  not  any  i>redication  concerning  eitlicr,  when  separated 
"  from  the  other.    Charity  also  is  the  essence  of  faith,  and  faith  is  the  form  of  charity; 
just  as  it  was  said  above,  that  good  is  the  essence  of  truth,  and  truth  the  form  of  good. 
These  two,  namely,  good  and  truth,  are  in  each  and  everything  that  exists  essentially." 
—  T.  C.  11.  307. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


146 


pion  of  the  true  scriptural  doctrine,  in  question  .'  In  the  Prolegomena  to  Wets- 
tein's  edition  of  the  Greek  Testament  you  find  him  cited  as  using  the  following 
language  : — "  I  do  not  wish  to  force  my  opinion  on  others,  but  I  must  say,  that 
I  do  not  think  the  Epistle  of  James  to  be  an  Apostolic  writing,  chiefly  for  this 
reason,  that  in  direct  contradiction  to  Paul  and  the  whole  of  the  Scriptures,  he 
attributes  justification  to  works.  Besides,  that  James  makes  such  a  jumble  and 
confused  mixture  of  all  that  he  treats  upon,  that  I  look  upon  him  to  have  been 
some  good  simple  soul,  who  merely  conimitted  to  paper  some  sayings  he  caught 
hold  of  from  some  of  the  disciples  of  the  Apostles."*  Is  not  this  at  least  some- 
what of  a  parallel  to  the  alledged  audacity  of  Swedenborg  in  ostracising  certain 
books  of  the  Bible  >  He,  however,  is  under  no  necessity  of  giving  up  Paul  in 
order  to  establish  a  view  of  Justification  which  he  finds  set  forth  in  the  whole 
tenor  of  the  teachings  of  Christ  and  of  the  Sacred  Writings  at  large.  But  I  expa- 
tiate no  further  upon  the  subject  at  present.  When  you  or  any  other  defender 
of  the  current  doctrine  shall  see  fit  to  state  distinctly  what  you  believe  and  what 
you  do  not  believe  respecting  it,  I  shall  hope  to  gain  the  information  which  will 
enable  me  to  discuss  the  theme  more  in  extenso.  Meantime  I  will  conclude 
this  article  by  adducing  two  of  the  Memorable  Relations,  the  one  setting  forth, 
in  strong,  indeed,  but  I  think,  true  colors,  the  prevalence  and  pre-eminence  of 
the  Solifidiau  doctrine  in  the  Reformed  Churches,  and  the  other  an  attempted 
explanation  of  the  act  of  justifying  faith.  You  will,  of  course,  exercise  your  own 
judgment  as  to  the  credibility  of  the  matter  of  fact  affirmed  in  regard  to  the  oc- 
currence of  such  a  conversation  in  the  other  world.  The  essential  question  is 
in  respect  to  the  intrinsic  truth  of  what  is  conveyed  in  the  relation.  This  can 
be  viewed  independently  of  everything  about  it  that  you  would  probably  term 
visionary  costume. 

"  What  a  desolation  of  truth  and  theological  leanness  there  are  at  this  day  in 
the  Christian  world,  was  Tiiade  known  to  me  from  conversing  with  many  of  the 
laity  and  with  many  of  the  clergy  in  the  spiritual  world.  With  the  latter  there  is 
such  a  spiritual  indigence,  that  they  scarcely  know  anything  else  than  that  there  is 
a  Trinity — the  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Spirit ;  and  that  faith  alone  saves ;  and  con- 
cerning the  Lord  Clarist,  only  the  historical  things  concerning  Him  in  the  Evange- 
Usts ;  but  as  to  the  other  things  which  the  Word  of  both  Testaments  teaches  con- 
cerning Him,  as  that  the  Father  and  He  are  one  ;  that  He  is  in  the  Father  and  the 
Father  in  Him ;  that  He  has  all  power  in  heaven  and  in  earth  ;  that  it  is  the  vi?ill 
of  the  Father  that  they  should  believe  in  the  Son,  and  that  he  that  believeth  in 
Him  hath  eternal  life,  besides  many  other  things;  these  are  as  unknown  and  as 
hidden  from  them  as  those  things  which  are  at  the  bottom  of  the  ocean ;  yea,  as 
those  which  lie  in  the  centre  of  the  earth;  and  when  those  things  are  produced 
from  the  Word  and  read,  they  stand  as  if  they  heard  and  did  not  hear;  and  they 
enter  into  their  ears  no  deeper  than  the  whistling  of  the  wind,  or  the  beating  of  a 
drum.  The  angels,  who  are  at  times  sent  forth  by  the  Lord  to  visit  the  Christian 
societies  which  are  in  the  world  of  spirits,  thus  under  heaven,  lament  exceed- 
ingly, saying, '  That  there  is  almost  as  much  dulness,  and  thence  darkness,  in 
the  things  of  salvation,  as  in  a  speaking  parrot;  they  say  also  that  the  learned 
among  them  understand,  iu  spiritual  and  divine  things,  no  more  than  statues. 
An  angel  once  related  to  me  the  conversation  which  he  had  with  two  of  the 
clergy,  one  who  was  in  faith  separate  from  charity,  another  who  was  in  faith 
not  separate.    With  the  one  who  was  in  faith  separate  from  charity  he  spoke 


•  I  am  aware  it  is  said  that  Luther  retracted  this  opinion  at  a  later  period,  but  as  I 
have  never  seen  the  passage  of  his  works  which  asserts  it,  and  know  not  upon  what 
authority  the  intimation  rests,  I  cite  the  above  with  the  expression  of  my  entire  willing- 
ness to  give  him  the  benefit  of  any  such  retraction  when  the  proof  of  it  shall  be  adduced. 
10 


148 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


thus :  '  Friend,  who  are  you  ?'  He  replied, '  I  am  a  Reformed  Christian.'  '  What 
is  your  doctrine,  and  thence  religion  ?'  He  replied,  '  It  is  faith.'  He  said, '  What 
is  your  faith  ,''  He  replied, '  My  faith  is,  that  God  the  Father  sent  the  Son  to  take 
upon  Him  the  damnation  of  the  human  race,  and  that  we  are  saved  by  that.' 
He  then  questioned  him,  by  saying, '  What  more  do  3'ou  know  concerning  sal- 
^-  vation?'  He  replied, '  Salvation  is  effected  by  faith  alone.'  He  said,  further, 
'  What  do  you  know  concerning  redemption  .''  He  replied, '  It  was  made  by  the 
*v   passion  of  the  cross,  and  the  merit  of  it  is  imputed  by  means  of  that  faith.' 

Again,  '  What  do  you  know  concerning  regeneration He  answered, '  It  is 
^  effected  by  that  faith.'    '  Tell  what  you  know  concerning  love  and  charity.'  He 
t-j  replied,  *  They  are  that  faith.'    '  Tell  what  you  think  concerning  the  precepts  of 
1  the  decalogue,  and  concerning  the  other  things  in  the  Word.'    He  replied, '  They 
v'  are  in  that  faith.'    Then  he  said, 'You  will  therefore  do  nothing.'    He  replied, 
'  What  shall  I  do    I  cannot  do  good,  which  is  good,  from  myself.'    He  said, '  Can 
you  have  faith  from  yourself He  replied, 'I  do  not  inquire  into  this,  I  shall 
.  -  have  faith.'    At  length  he  said, '  Do  you  know  anything  at  all  more  concerning 
salvation?'    He  replied,  'What  more,  since  salvation  is  by  that  faith  alone?' 
But  then  the  angel  said, '  You  answer  like  one  who  plays  with  one  note  of  a 
harp  ;  I  hear  nothing  but  faith ;  if  you  know  that,  and  do  not  know  anything 
^'  besides,  you  know  nothing.    Go  and  see  your  companions.'    He  went  and  found 
.  *  them  in  a  desert,  where  there  was  no  grass,  and  he  asked  why  it  was  so ;  and  it 
was  said,  '  Because  they  have  nothing  of  the  church.' 

"  Withliim  who  was  in  faith  conjoined  to  charity, the  angel  spoke  thus  : '  Friend, 
who  are  you  ?'    He  replied, '  I  am  a  Reformed  Christian.'    '  What  is  your  doc- 
trine, and  thence  religion?'    He  replied, '  Faith  and  charity.'    He  said, '  These  ^ 
are  two  things.'    He  replied, '  They  cannot  be  separated.'    He  said. '  What  is  ■ 
'f faith?'    He  replied, 'To  believe  vyhat  the  Word  teaches.'    He  said. '  What  is] 
■ .  /  ^Karity  .'y~He  answere"(ir'  To  do  wTiat  tlie  Word  teaches.'  -  He  said , '  Have  you ' 
I  only  believed  thoie~tTiings,  Gr"Tiave  you  also  done  them  ?'    He  replied, '  I  have 
also  done  them.'    The  angel  of  heaven  then  looked  at  him  and  said,  '  My  friend, 
<^    come  with  me  and  dwell  with  us.'"— T.  C.  R.  391. 

"  I  onoe  heard  a  noise  as  of  two  mill-stones  rubbing  against  each  otlier.  I 
went  to  the  sound,  and  it  ceased  ;  and  I  saw  a  narrow  gate  leading  obliquely 
downward^  to  a  certain  vaulted  house,  in  which  were  many  chambers,  in  which 
were  little  cells,  in  each  of  which  sat  two  persons,  who  were  collecting  from  the 
Word  confirmations  in  favor  of  justification  by  faith  alone :  one  was  collecting 
and  the  other  was  writing,  and  this  by  turns.  I  went  up  to  one  cell,  which  was 
near  the  door,  and  asked, '  What  are  you  collecting  and  writing?'  They  said, 
'  Concerning  the  act  of  justification,  or  concerning  faith  in  act,  wlrich  is 
itself  justifying,  vivifying  and  saving  faith,  and  the  head  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
church  in  our  Christendom.'  And  then  I  said  to  him,  '  Tell  mc  some  sign  of 
that  act,  when  that  faith  is  introduced  into  the  heart  and  into  the  soul  of  man,' 
He  replied,  '  The  sign  of  that  act  is  in  the  moment  when  a  man  is  pierced  witli 
anguish  on  account  of  his  condemnation,  and  when,  in  that  contrition,  he  thinks 
of  Christ,  that  He  took  away  the  condemnation  of  the  law,  and  lays  hoid  of  this 
his  merit  with  confidence,  and  with  this  in  his  thought  goes  to  God  the  Father 
and  prays.'  Then  said  I,  '  Thus  the  act  is  made,  and  this  is  the  moment.' 
And  I  asked, '  How  .shall  I  comprehend  what  is  said  concerning  this  act,  that 
man  contributes  nothing  towards  it,  any  more  than  he  would  if  he  were  a  stock 
or  a  stone;  and  that  man,  as  to  that  act,  has  no  power  to  begin,  will,  understand, 
think,  operate,  co-operate,  apply  and  accommodate  himself?  Tell  me  how  this 
coheres  with  what  you  said,  tltat  the  act  then  happens,  when  man  is  thinking 
concerning  the  justice  of  the  law,  concerning  its  condemnation  removed  by 
Christ,  concerning  the  confidence  in  which  he  lays  hold  of  this  his  merit,  and  in 
thought  concerning  this  goes  to  God  the  Father  and  prays.  Are  not  all  these 
things  done  by  man.''  But  l>e  said, '  They  are  not  done  by  man  actively,  but 
passively.'  And  I  replied, '  How  can  any  oi>c  think,  have  confidence,  and  pray 
passively?  Take  away  from  man  what  is  active  and  co-operative,  then  do  you 
not  also  take  away  what  is  receptive,  thus  all,  and  with  all  the  act  itself?  What 
then  does  your  act  become,  but  purely  ideal,  which  is  called  an  imaginary  entity  ? 
I  hope  that  you  do  not  believe,  with  some,  that  such  act,  is  given  only  with  the 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


147 


predestinated  who  know  nothing  at  all  about  the  infusion  of  faith  into  them- 
selves. These  can  play  at  dice,  and  thereby  inquire  whether  faith  has  been 
infused  into  them,  or  not.  Wherefore,  my  friend,  believe  tiiat  man,  as  to  charity 
and  faith,  operates  of  himself  from  the  Lord,  and  that  without  this  operation, 
your  act  of  faith,  which  you  called  the  head  of  all  the  doctrines  of  the  church 
in  Christendom,  is  nothing  else  than  the  statue  of  Lot's  wife,  tinkling  from  mere 
salt,  when  touched  with  a  scFibe"s  pen,  or  his  fniger  nail  (Luke  xvii.  32).  This  I 
said,  because  you  make  yourselves,  as  to  that  act,  similar  to  statues.'  When  I 
had  said  this,  he  took  a  candlestick,  intending  to  throw  it  with  all  his  might  into 
my  face,  and  the  candle  then  suddenly  being  extinguished,  he  threw  it  at  the 
forehead  of  his  companion." — Id.  505. 

i  V.  Human  Depravity.^"  He  rejects  the  doctrine  of  human  depravity,  as  com- 
!\monly  understood.  He  does  indeed  assert  that  there  is  nothing  but  evil  in  man 
'Jfrom  his  birth ;  that  his  proprium,  or  selfhood,  as  he  calls  it,  is  evil  and  only  evil. 
But  he  does  not  regard  this  evil  as  belonging  to  man  himself,  so  as  to  render  him 
personally  sinful  and  ill-deserving.  So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  understand 
him,  without  coming  into  the  clear  light  of  the  New  Jerusalem  Church,  he  holds 
that  man  in  himself,  originally  and  afterwards,  is  a  mere  recipient,  and  that  the 
evils  found  in  him,  come  from  evil  spirits,  and  consist  of  the  influxes  which  these 
spirits  inject  into  his  mind.  True,  man-  has  influxes  also  from' good  spirits,  and 
he  has  a  will  to  choose  between  the  good  and  bad  influxes,  and  to  determine 
which  he  will  receive a  little  like  Coleridge's  notion,  who  holds  something 
like  this,  that  original  sin  comes  to  the  mind  of  man  at  the  beginning  of  his  ex- 
istence, and  offers  itself  to  him,  and  that  he  then  wills  whether  to  admit  or  reject 
it;  though,  mysterious  as  it  is,  the  will  always  goes  one  way,  and  that  the  wrong 
way.  According  to  Swedenborg,  it  is  the  great,  leading  fact  in  the  history  of 
man  on  earth,  that  angels,  good  and  bad,  are  constantly  making  influxes  into  his 
mind,  the  influxes  of  good  angels  exciting  good  thoughts  and  desires,  and  lead- 
ing to  the  truths  of  faith  and  the  goods  of  charity,  while  the  influxes  of  bad 
angels  lead  to  falses  and  evil  afTections.  And  this  process,  this  strife  of  good 
and  evil  angels,  with  their  different  influxes,  continues  not  only  through  the  pre- 
sent life,  but  for  a  long  time  in  the  future  world,  until  men,  during  that  second 
probation,  are  confirmed  either  in  the  truths  of  faith  and  the  goods  of  charity,  or 
in  the  contrary;  when  they  go  to  heaven  or  to  hell  according  to  their  respective 
loves.  After  this,  those  who  are  confirmed  m  good,  have  influxes  only  from 
good  angels ;  and  they  themselves  are  angels,  and  are  much  employed  in 
making  influxes  into  the  interiors  of  other  angels,  and  thus  their  good  influxes 
are  reciprocal.  These  reciprocal  influxes  constitute  a  most  important  part  of 
the  employments  of  the  ever  active  spirits  in  heaven;  while  the  oounterpart  of 
all  this  goes  on  in  hell ;  for  wicked  men  there  become  evil  angels  or  devils,  and 
while  they  receive  evil  influxes  from  other  devils,  they  impart  the  same  to  them." 
—p.  125-6. 

All  this  is  presented  without  the  least  attempt  to  point  out  its  errors  or  falla- 
cies, evidently  under  the  impression  that  it  would  be  intuitively  seen  to  be  false, 
because  differing,  in  some  way,  from  the  prevailing  creed  respecting  the  innate 
depravity  of  man.  Without  any  purpose  of  denying  that  there  is  a  real  and  im- 
portant diversity  in  the  two  classes  of  views  on  this  subject,  I  must  still  be  per- 
mitted to  say  that  had  you  come  a  litde  more  fully  "  into  the  clear  light  of  the 
New  Jerusalem,"  you  would  have  given  a  very  different  representation  of  Swe- 
denborg'&  doctrine  on  this  head.    "  He  does  indeed  assert  that  there  is  nothing 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


but  evil  in  man  from  his  birth ;  that  his  proprium,  or  selfhood,  as  he  calls  it,  is 
evil,  and  only  evil.  But  he  does  not  regard  this  evil  as  belonging  to  man  him- 
self, so  as  to  render  him  personally  evil  and  ill-deserving."  And  where,  pray, 
did  you  learn  this.'  I  am  somewhat  conversant  with  Swedenborg's  writings,  and 
I  can  safely  say  that  I  have  never  met  with  a  sentence  having  the  slightest  approx- 
imation to  such  a  sentiment  as  you  have  here  ascribed  to  him.  The  influx  and 
(joperation  of  spirits  upon  the  minds  of  men  he  does  indeed  assert  in  the  most 
unequivocal  terms,  but  he  never  mtimates  that  this  influence  interferes  with 
m.an's  moral  freedom  so  as  to  exempt  him  from  personal  responsibility,  or  to 
take  away  his  sinfulness  and  ill-desert Why  should  it,  any  more  than  the  sug- 
gestions and  temptations  of  his  fellow-men  on  earth.'  If  one  man  can  work 
upon  and'inflame  the  concupiscences  of  another,  and  thus  entice  him  to  sin 
without  invading  his  moral  freedom,  why  may  not  the  same  thing  be  done  by 
'spirits  who  have  more  immediate  access  to  his  interior  affections  and  prompt- 
ings .'  Indeed  with  a  strange  kind  of  consistency  you  have  expressly  acknowl- 
edged this,  for  you  say  that  according  to  him,  though  man  in  himself  is  "  a  mere 
recipient,  and  the  evils  found  in  him  come  from  evil  spirits  and  consist  of  the 
influxes  which  these  spirits  inject  into  his  mind,  yet  he  has  influxes  also  from 
good  spirits,  and  a  w^ill  to  choo.'^e  between  the  good  and  bad  influxes,  and  to 
determine  which  he  will  receive."  And  I  would  fain  inquire  w^hether  you  do 
not  believe  tliis  also .'  Is  your  edition  of  the  Bible  lacking  in  those  numerous 
intimations  of  angelic  and  diabolical  suggestion,  which  pious  people  have 
always  been  in  the  habit  of  reading  in  it.'  And  have  they  ever  supposed  that 
these  spiritual  influences  barred  the  fact  of  their  evils  "  belonging  to  themselves 
and  rendering  them  personally  sinful  and  ill-deserving It  must  certainly  be 
admitted  to  be  a  novel  mode  of  controverting  certain  religious  doctrines,  to  urge 
against  them,  as  objections,  tenets  which  the  objector  himself  fully  admits  in 
his  own  system.  If  you  deny  the  fact  of  such  admission,  you  will  of  course  be 
free  to  say  so ;  but  if  you  concede  it,  you  will  be  bound,  I  conceive,  to  state  pre- 
cisely in  what  respects  your  ideas  of  angelic  and  satanic  agency  differ  from  those 
presented  by  Swedenborg.  That  you  may  know  precisely  what  he  teaches  on 
this  head,  I  will  adduce  a  few  extract.*;.  They  naturally  arrange  themselves,  in 
reference  to  your  remarks,  under  heads,  showing,  (1)  that  man's  proprium,  or 
selfhood,  is  altogether  evd  and  depraved,  and  how  this  is  inherited ;  (2)  that 
man  is  continually  operated  upon  by  influxes  from  both  good  and  evil  spirits  > 
and  (3)  that  this  fact  does  not  at  all  do  away  his  freedom  as  a  moral  agent. 

I.  "  Nothing  evil  and  false  exists  which  is  not  proprium,  and  derived  from 
yroprium ;  for  man's  proprium  is  essential  evfl,  in  consequence  whereof  man  is 
notning  but  what  is  evil  and  false ;  this  was  made  clear  to  me  from  this  circum- 
stance, that  when  the  propriums  are  rendered  visible  in  the  world  of  spirits,  they 
appear  so  deformed,  that  it  is  impossible  to  paint  anything  more  so,  yet  with  a 
diversity  according  to  the  nature  of  the  proprium  ;  this  deformity  is  so  striking, 
tliat  he  who  seeth  his  own  proprium  is  struck  with  horror  at  himself,  and  wisheth 
to  fly  from  himself  as  from  a  devil." — A.  C.  154. 

,"  It  has  been  shown  me  by  lively  experience,  that  a  man  and  a  spirit,  yea,  an 
angel,  considered  in  himself,  that  is,  all  his  proprium,  is  the  vilest  offal,  and  that 
left  to  himself  he  would  breathe  nothing  but  hatred,  revenge,  cruelly,  and  the 
most  foul  adulteries ;  these  things  are  his  proprium,  and  his  will.  This  may 
appear  to  every  reflecting  person  only  from  this,  tliat  man  when  he  is  born,  is 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


rhe  vilest  living  thing  amongst  all  wild  beasts;  and  when  he  grows  up,  and  is 
left  to  his  own  government,  unless  he  were  prevented  by  external  restraints, 
which  are  of  the  law,  and  by  restraints  which  he  lays  upon  himself  in  order  to 
be  the  greatest  and  richest,  he  would  rush  headlong  into  all  wickedness,  and 
would  not  rest  until  he  had  subdued  all  in  the  universe,  and  had  amassed  to  him- 
self the  wealth  of  all ,  nor  would  he  spare  any  but  those  who  submitted  themselves 
as  vile  slaves.  Such  is  the  nature  of  every  man,  though  he  does  not  perceive  it 
by  reason  of  his  inability  to  accomplish  his  evil  purposes,  and  of  the  impossi- 
bility of  their  accomplishment;  neverthelessi  if  he  had  ability,  and  possibility, 
and  all  restraints  were  removed,  he  would  rush  headlong  as  far  as  he  had  power. 
Beasts  are  not  at  all  such;  they  are  born  to  a  certain  order  of  nature;  such  as 
are  wild  and  rapacious  comit  violence  on  others,  but  it  is  only  for  the  sake  of 
preserving  themselves;  and  that  they  devour  others,  to  appease  hunger,  which 
being  appeased,  they  cease  to  do  harm :  but  it  is  altogether  otherwise  with  man. 
Hence  it  appears  what  the  proprium  of  man  is,  and  what  is  his  will.  Man  then 
being  such  and  so  great  evil  and  pollution,  it  is  evident  that  he  can  never  of  him- 
self liave  dominion  over  evil :  it  is  altogether  a  contradiction  to  suj)pose  that 
evil  can  have  dominion  over  eviiyand  not  only  over  evil,  but  also  over  Keli,  for 
eVBf^^'n'idn  Ka.^' 'domK'imiTcaTToTr"with  hell  by  means  of  evil  spirits,  whereby  the 
evil  which  is  in  him  is  excited  :  from  these  considerations  every  one  may  know, 
and  he  who  is  of  a  sound  mind  may  conclude,  that  it  is  the  Lord  alone  who  has 
dominion  over  evil  in  man,  and  over  hell  which  is  with  man.  That  evil  maj'. 
be  subdued  in  man,  that  is,  hell,  which  is  every  moment  attempting  to  rush  in 
upon  man,  and  to  destroy  him  eternally,  man  is  regenerated  by  the  Lord,  and  is 
gifted  with  a  new  will,  which  is  conscience/ by  wliich  the  Lord  alone  operates_ 
all^that  is  good.  These  things  are  of  faitE,  viz.,  that  man  is  nothing  else  but 
evil ;  and  that  all  good  is  from  the  Lord ;  wherefore  man  ought  not  only  to  know, 
but  also  to  acknowledge  and  believe  them :  if  he  does  not  acknowledge  and 
believe  them  in  the  life  of  the  body,  Lu  anotlrer  life  it  is  shown  liim  by  living 
evidence." — A.  C.  987. 

"  I  have  discoursed  with  the  angels  concerning  infants,  whether  they  are  pure 
from  evils,  inasmuch  as  they  have  committed  no  actual  evil,  like  the  adult;  but 
it  was  said  to  me,  that  they  are  alike  in  evil,  yea,  that  they  are  nothing  but  evil ; 
nevertheless  that  they,  like  all  the  angels,  are  Avithheld  from  evil,  and  preserved 
in  good  by  the  Lord,  and  this  in  such  a  sort,  that  it  appears  to  them  as  if  the)^ 
were  in  good  from  themselves;  wherefore  also  infants,  after  that  they  become 
adult  in  heaven,  lest  they  should  be  in  this  false  opinion  concerning  themselves, 
that  the  good  with  them  is  from  them,  and  not  from,  the  Lord,  are  remitted  at 
times  into  their  own  evils,  which  they  have  received  hereditarily,  and  are  left 
therein,  until  they  know,  acknowledge,  and  believe  that  tlie  case  is  so.  That 
infants,  when  grown  adult,  are  remitted  into  the  state  of  their  hereditary  evil,  is 
not  that  they  may  suffer  punishment,  but  it  is  in  order  to  convince  them,  that  of 
themselves  they  are  nothing  but  evil,  and  that  by  the  Lord's  mercy  they  are, 
raised  out  of  hell,  which  is  with  them,  into  heaven,  and  that  they  are  not  in; 
heaven  from  their  own  merit,  but  from  the  Lord ;  and  thus  to  prevent  their  boast- 
ing themselves  before  others,  for  the  good  which  they  po.ssess ;  for  this  is  con-' 
trary  to  the  good  of  mutual  love,  as  it  is  contrary  to  the  truth  of  faith." — A.  C. 
2307-8. 

"  Every  actual  evil  in  parents  assumes  an  appearance  of  nature,  and  when  it 
often  recurs,  it  becomes  natural,  and  is  added  to  what  was  hereditary,  and  is 
transplanted  into  their  children,  and  thus  into  their  posterity,  so  that  there  is  an 
immense  increase  of  hereditary  evil  in  succeeding  generations ;  and  this  every 
one  may  know  from  the  evil  dispositions  of  children  being  like  their  parents,  and 
forefathers.  It  is  a  most  false  idea  to  suppose  with  some,  there  is  no  hereditary 
evil  but  what  was  implanted,  and  as  they  say,  by  Adam;  when  yet  every  par-- 
ticular  person,  by  his  own  actual  sins,  causes  hereditary  evil,  and  makes  an 
addition  to  what  he  received  from  his  parents,  and  thus  accumulates  what  re- 
mains in  all  his  posterity ;  nor  does  this  suffer  any  check,  except  in  those  who 
are  regenerated  by  the  Lord.  This  is  the  primary  cause  that  every  church  de- 
generates; so  also  with  the  Most  Ancient  Church." — A.  C.  494. 


150 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


"  Every  man  is  born  of  his  parents  into  the  evils  of  the  love  of  self  and  of  the 
world :  every  evil,  which  by  habit  as  it  were  hath  contracted  a  nature,  is 
derived  into  the  offspring ;  thus  successively  from  parents,  from  grandfathers, 
and  from  great-grand-fathers,  in  a  long  series  backwards  :  hence  the  derivation 
of  evil  is  at  length  become  so  great,  that  the  all  of  man's  proper  life  is  nothing 
else  but  evil.  This  continued  derived  evil  is  not  broken  and  altered  except  by 
the  life  of  faith  and  charity  from  the  Lord.  Man  continually  inclines  and  lapses 
mto  what  he  derives  hereditarily  from  his  parents:  hence  he  confirms  with 
himself  that  evil,  and  also  of  himself  superadds  more  evils.  These  evils  are 
altogether  contrary  to  spiritual  life,  they  destroy  it;  wherefore  unless  man,  as  to 
spiritual  life,  is  by  the  Lord  conceived  anew,  born  anew,  and  educated  anew, 
that  is,  is  created  anew,  he  is  damned,  for  he  wills  nothing  else,  and  hence  thinks 
nothing  else,  but  what  is  of  hell."— J.  C.  8550-52. 

It  would  seem  from  dhe  above  that  the  fad  of  a  deep,  desperate,  and  universal 
depravity  is  held  as  strongly  'by  Swedenborg  as  by  Edwards  himself,  or  any 
other  Calvinist,  divine  who  has  written  on  the  subject.  I  do  not  see  that  he 
can  be  regarded  as  coming  short  of  the  most  stringent  demands  of  orthodoxy 
on  this  head,  unless  perchance  there  should  be  something  in  the  manner  of  his 
holding  the  doctrine  which  goes  to  nullify  the  legitimate  import  of  the  admis- 
sions now  made.  If  this  is  alleged,  it  must  be  upon  the  ground  of  what  he  says 
concerning  the  influxes  from  the  spiHtual  world.  The  testimony  on  this  score  is 
so  immensely  voluminous  in  his  writings  that  I  scarcely  know  how  to  make  the 
most  apposite  selections.    The  following  however  may  serve  as  a  specimen. 

n.  "  It  is  known  in  the  church,  that  all  good  is  from  God ,  and  none  from  man,  and 
•that  therefore  no  one  ought  to  ascribe  any  good  to  himself  as  his  own ;  and  it 
is  also  known  that  evil  is  from  the  devil :  hence  it  is,  that  those  who  speak  from 
the  doctrine  of  the  church,  say  of  those  who  act  well,  and  also  of  those  who 
speak  and  preach  piously,  that  they  are  led  by  God  ;  but  the  contrary  of  those 
wJio  act  ill  and  speak  impiously.  These  things  cannot  be  so,  unless  tliere  be 
to  man  conjunction  with  heaven  and  conjunction  with  hell,  and  unless  those 
conjunctions  be  with  his  will  and  with  his  understanding ;  for  from  these  the  body 
acts  and  the  mouth  speaks.  What  that  conjunction  is,  shall  now  be  told.  With 
every  .man  there  are  good  spirits  and  evil  spirits;  by  good  spirits  man  has  con- 
junction with  heaven,  and  by  evil  spirits  with  hell.  Those  spirits,  when  they 
come  to  a  man,  enter  into  all  his  memory,  and  thence  into  all  his  thought ;  evil 
spirits  into  those  things  of  the  memory  and  thought  which  are  evil,  but  good 
spirits  into  those  things  of  the  memory  and  thought  which  are  good.  That 
there  is  such  conjunction  of  spirits  with  man,  has  been  made  known  to  me 
from  the  continual  experience  of  several  years,  so  that  nothing  is  better  known. 
What  the  communication  of  heaven  with  good  spirits  is,  and  what  the  com- 
munication of  hell  with  evil  spirits  is,  and  thence  what  the  conjunction  of 
heaven  and  hell  with  man  is,  shall  also  be  told.  All  the  spirits,  who  are  in 
the  world  of  spirits,  have  communication  with  heaven  or  with  hell ;  the  evil 
with  hell,  and  the  good  with  heaven.  Heaven  is  distinguished  into  societies ;  in 
like  manner  hell.  Every  spirit  belongs  to  some  society,  and  also  subsists  by 
influx  thence  ;  thus  he  acts  as  one  witli  it.  Hence  it  is,  that  as  man  is  conjoined 
with  spirits,  so  he  is  conjoined  with  heaven  or  with  hell,  and  indeed  with  that 
society  there  in  which  he  is  as  to  his  affection,  or  as  to  his  love ;  for  all  the 
societies  of  heaven  are  distinct,  according  to  the  affections  of  good  and  of  truth, 
and  all  the  socities  of  hell  according  to  the  affections  of  what  is  evil  and  false. 

"  Such  spirits  are  adjoined  to  man  as  he  himself  is  as  to  affection  or  as  to  love  ; 
but  good  spirits  are  adjoined  to  him  by  the  Lord,  whereas  evil  spirits  are  invited 
by  the  man  himself:  but  the  spirits  with  man  are  changed  according  to  the 
changes  of  his  affections:  thence  some  spirits  are  with  him  in  infancy,  others  in 
childhood,  others  in  youth  and  manhood,  and  others  in  old  age.  In  infancy 
spirits  are  present  who  are  in  innocence,  thus  who  communicate  with  the 
heaven  of  innocence,  which  is  the  inmost  or  third  heaven;  in  childhood  are 
present  spirits  who  are  in  the  affection  of  knowing,  thus  who  communicate 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


151 


with  the  ultimate  or  first  heaven ;  in  youth  and  manhood  are  present  spirits 
who  are  in  the  affection  of  truth  and  good,  and  thence  in  inteUigence,  thus  who 
communicate  with  the  second  or  middle  heaven;  but  in  old  age,  spirits  are  pres- 
ent who  are  in  wisdom  and  innocence,  thus  who  communicate  with  the  inmost 
or  third  heaven.  Bnt  this  adjunction  is  effected  by  the  Lord  with  those  who  can 
be  reformed  and  regenerated.  The  case  is  otherwise  with  those  who  cannot  be 
reformed  and  regenerated  :  to  these  also  good  spirits  are  adjoined,  that  by  them 
they  may  be  withheld  from  evil  as  much  as  possible;  but  their  immediate  con- 
junction is  with  evil  spirits,  who  communicate  with  hell,  whence  they  have 
such  spirits  as  the  men  themselves  are.  If  they  be  lovers  of  themselves,  or  • 
lovers  of  gain,  or  lovers  of  revenge,  or  lovers  of  adultery,  similar  spirits  are  pres- 
ent, and  as  it  were  dwell  in  their  evil  affections  ;  and  as  far  as  man  cannot  be 
kept  from  evil  by  good  spirits,  so  far  these  evil  .spirits  inflame  him  ;  and  as  far 
as  the  affection  reigns,  so  far  they  adhere  and  do  not  recede.  Thus  a  bad  man 
is  conjoined  to  hell,  and  a  good  man  is  conjoined  to  heaven." — H.  ^  H.  291-295. 

This  then  is  Swedenborg's  doctrine  of  angelic  and  diabolic  influx,  and  the 
question  at  once  occurs  whether  his  teachings  on  this  head  represent  man  as  a 
"  mere  recipient"  to  such  a  degree  as  to  take  away  his  freedom  as  a  moral 
agent  and  to  prevent  our  regarding  him  as  "  personally  sinful  and  ill-deserving." 
Out  of  scores  of  paragraphs  of  similar  purport  I  adduce  the  following. 

IIL  "  The  Lord  through  the  angels  could  lead  man  into  good  ends  by  omnipotent 
might ;  but  this  would  be  to  take  life  away  from  him,  for  his  life  is  a  life  of  loves 
altogether  contrary  to  such  ends.  Wherefore  the  divine  law  is  inviolable,  that 
man  shall  be  in  freedom,  and  that  good  and  truth,  or  charity  and  faith,  shall  be 
implanted  in  his  free  state,  and  in  no  case  in  a  forced  state ;  for  what  is  received 
in  a  forced  state,  does  not  remain,  but  is  dissipated.  For  to  force  man,  is  not  to 
insinuate  into  his  will  [velle],  inasmuch  as  it  is  the  will  of  another,  from  which 
he  then  would  act,  and  therefore  when  he  returns  to  his  own  will,  that  is,  to  his 
freedom,  what  had  been  insinuated  is  extirpated.  On  this  account  the  Lord  rules 
man  by  his  freedom,  and  as  far  as  possible  withholds  him  from  the  freedom  of 
thinking  and  willing  evil ;  for  man,  unless  he  was  withheld  by  the  Lord,  would 
continually  precipitate  himself  into  the  deepest  hell.  It  was  said,  that  the  Lord 
through  the  angels  could  lead  man  into  good  ends  by  omnipotent  might,  for  evil 
spirits  may  in  an  instant  be  driven  away,  even  if  mj  riads  of  them  should  encom- 
pass man,  and  this  by  one  angel;  but  then  man  would  come  hito  such  torture, 
and  into  such  a  hell,  as  he  could  by  no  means  s  ustain,  since  he  would  be  miser- 
ably deprived  of  his  life.  For  the  life  of  man  is  from  lusts  and  fantasies  contrary 
to  good  and  truth,  and  unless  this  life  were  supported  by  evil  spirits,  and  were 
thus  amended,  or  at  least  guided,  he  would  not  survive  a  single  moment,  for 
nothing  else  has  place  in  him  but  the  love  of  self  and  of  gain,  and  of  reputation 
for  the  sake  of  self  and  gain,  thus  whatsoever  is  contrary  to  order;  wherefore 
unless  he  were  to  be  reduced  into  order  moderately,  and  by  degrees,  by  the  guid- 
ance of  his  freedom,  he  would  instantly  expire."— ^4.  C.  5854. 

"  Man,  so  far  as  he  partakes  of  what  is  hereditary  and  thence  of  self,  would 
have  no  life,  if  he  were  not  allowed  to  be  in  evil,  and  none  also,  if  he  were  notin 
freedom  ;  and  moreover,  that  he  cannot  be  forced  to  good,  and  that  which  is  forced 
does  not  adhere  ;  as  also  that  the  good  which  man  receives  in  freedom,  is  im- 
planted in  his  will,  and  becomes  as  his  own ;  and  that  hence  it  is  that  man  has 
communication  with  hell,  and  communication  with  heaven." — H.  ^  H.  293. 

You  have  now  the  data  before  you  on  which  to  judge  how  far  the  doctrine  of 
human  depravity,  as  you  understand  it  to  be  taught  in  the  Scriptures,  is  denied  by 
Swedenborg — consequently  how  far  it  is  justly  subject  to  the  odium  which  your 
remarks  are  calculated  to  draw  upon  it,  unaccompanied  as  they  are  with  any 
intimations  of  what  you  conceive  the  real  doctrine  to  be,  or,  in  other  words,  of 
what  he  ought  to  teach  on  this  subject  in  order  to  be  consistent  with  truth.  He 
certainly  holds  that  man  is  by  nature  altogether  evil  and  depraved,  and  this  I 


152  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

presume  you  also  hold.   He  holds  too  that  man  is  continually  subject  to  infernal 

and  celestial  influxes,  in  which  I  cannot  doubt  that  you  agree  with  him,  if  you 
take  the  Scriptures  as  the  rule  of  doctrine  on  this  head.  He  maintains  moreover 
that  man  is  under  no  absolute  compulsion  as  to  yielding  to  those  influences, 
and  therefore  still  remains  a  free  moral  agent  and  of  course  "  personally  sinful 
and  ill-deserving"  as  far  as  he  complies  with  the  promptings  of  evil  spirits  and 
resists  those  of  the  good.  Do  you  not  maintain  the  same  ?  If  you  still  object  that 
there  is  some  flaw  in  his  reasonings  on  this  topic,  I  would  respectfully  suggest 
whether  it  be  not  in  some  point  on  which  your  own  system  is  equally  assaila- 
ble. Does  not  the  following  extract  disclose  the  real  nodus  in  the  whole  matter, 
and  have  you  any  conclusion  on  this  head  different  from  his  ? 

"  He  who  desires  to  investigate  only  the  hidden  tilings  of  nature,  which  are 
innumerable,  with  difficulty  discovers  a  single  one,  and  in  the  course  of  his  in- 
vestigation is  liable  to  fall  into  many  errors,  as  experience  teaches ;  and  how 
much  more  likely  is  this  to  be  the  case,  in  investigating  the  hidden  things  of 
spiritual  and  celestial  life,  where  myriads  of  mysteries  exist  for  one  that  is  to  be 
found  in  invisible  nature  !  For  the  sake  of  illustr./.i'ng  this  point,  let  us  take  the 
following  instance  ;  man  of  himself  cannot  do  otherwise  than  commit  evil,  and 
turn  himself  away  from  the  Lord  ;  yet  it  is  not  man  who  does  this,  but  the  evil 
spirits  who  are  attendant  on  him ;  nor  do  the  evil  spirits  do  it,  but  the  evil  itself 
which  they  have  appropriated  to  themselves ;  nevertheless  man  does  evil,  and 
turns  himself  away  from  the  Lord,  and  is  in  fault ;  and  yet  he  does  not  live 
but  from  the  Lord.  So  on  the  other  hand,  man  of  himself  cannot  possibly  do 
good,  and  turn  himself  to  the  Lord,  but  by  the  angels ;  nor  can  the  augels  do  this, 
but  the  Lord  alone  ;  and  yet  man  may  as  of  himself  do  good,  and  turn  himself 
to  the  Lord :  that  this  is  really  the  case,  neither  the  senses,  nor  science,  nor  phi- 
losophy can  conceive,  or  apprehend,  and  therefore  if  they  are  consulted  as  to 
the  truth  of  such  propositions,  they  reject  and  deny  them,  when  nevertheless  in 
themselves  they  are  most  true ;  and  thus  it  is  also  in  all  other  cases  respecting 
things  spiritual  and  celestial." — A.  C.  233. 

The  grand  problems  connected  with  this  subject  do  undoubtedly  resolve  them- 
selves at  last  into  the  mystery  of  dependent  life,  and  altliough  Swedenborg's  dis- 
closures lay  open  a  world  of  wisdom  on  this  theme,  I  cannot  now  enlarge  upon 
it.  If,  however,  you  will  take  any  of  his  Indexes  and  turning  to  the  article  Life, 
consult  the  references,  I  shall  be  greatly  mistaken  if  you  do  not  find  there  a 
depth  of  philosophy  on  that  matter  such  as  you  have  never  met  elsewhere. 

-  VI.  PredegtipQlipji. — "  The  doctrine  of  predestination,  as  held  by  the  Reformed 
Churches,  is  clearly  demonstrable  by  reason,  and  is  fully  taught  in  the  Scriptures, 
particularly  in  that  part  of  the  New  Testament  which  Swedenborg  discards. 
This  doctrine  both  he  and  his  angels  grossly  misrepresent,  much  in  the  manner  of 
Tomline  and  Whitby,  and  the  most  violent  cavillers  among  the  Unitarians  and 
Arminians.  According  to  him,  it  implies  that  we  have  no  agency  in  spiritual 
things ;  that  man  is  like  a  stock,  and  is  converted  as  inaniuiate,  and  that  after- 
wards he  does  not  know  whether  he  be  a  stock  vivified  by  grace,  or  not."  Per- 
mit me  here  to  remark,  that  the  advocates  of  Swedenborg's  doctrines  are  often 
thrown  by  their  opponents  into  a  position  which  is  embarrassing  because  it  is 
in  fact  a  false  position — one  to  which  they  are  reduced  solely  by  the  most  unjust 
arts  of  controversy.  They  are  called  upon  to  defend  a  system  which  is  charged 
with  contravening  certain  doctrines  that  are  claimed  to  be  the  doctrines  taught 
by  the  Reformers  and  held  by  what  are  termed  evangelical  churches.  Still  no 
reference  is  made  to  any  authentic  standard  of  these  doctrines.   We  are  nowhere 


) 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR  WOODS. 


153 


instructed  as  to  what  is  the  genuine  and  accredited  form  in  which  they  are  pro- 
pounded— no  affirmative  statement  is  given  of  the  sense  in  which  the  tenet  is,  or 
is  not,  to  be  imderstood  by  its  espousers.  In  a  word,  we  are  left  in  the  dark  as  to 
what  the  real  doctrine  is  which  is  said  to  be  impugned  by  the  contrary  doctrine 
of  Swedenborg.  If  we  turn  to  the  Westminster  Confession  or  Catechism,  or  any 'y 
one  of  the  estabUshed  formularies  of  faith,  we  are  met  upon  the  threshold  by 
the  reply  that  that  is  not  tlie  form  of  the  doctrine  which  the  objector  holds  him- 
self pledged  to  defend.  And  so  let  us  seek  it  where  we  will,  it  still  eludes  our 
grasp.  It  assumes  a  thousand  Protean  forms.  Our  enemy  does  not  meet  us  in 
the  open  field  or  in  his  own  proper  person,  but  hurls  his  missiles  from  behind 
the  trees.  We  know  not  where  to  look  for  him.  In  the  mean  time  the  vague 
general  charge  is  producing  its  effect  in  creating  odium.  The  honest  and  simple- 
minded  reader  is  horrified  at  the  idea  of  the  venerable  dogmas  of  his  church 
being  rudely  assailed,  not  dreaming  probably  that  these  very  dogmas  have  been 
again  and  again  called  in  question  by  multitudes  who  yet  profess  to  receive 
them,  but  who  feel  at  liberty  to  interpret  them  in  a  sense  quite  different  from 
that  which  they  bear  on  their  face. 

Thus  in  regard  to  the  present  point — that  of  jiredestination,  by  which  I  suppose 
you  intend  what  is  generally  understood  by  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  sovereignty 
in  the  salvation  of  men.  You  leave  me  wholly  unresolved  as  to  what  you  un- 
derstand to  be  the  genuine  doctrine  of  the  Word  on  that  subject,  or  where  I  am 
to  seek  for  an  accredited  exposition  of  it.  There  is  a  tremendous  heresy  some- 
where, but  what  it  is  I  am  left  to  guess.  You  virtually  charge  Swedenborg  with 
misrepresenting  the  doctrine,  because  "  according  to  him  it  implies,  that  we 
have  no  agency  in  spiritual  things ;  that  man  is  like  a  stock,  and  is  converted 
as  inanimate."  Now  I  must  confess  for  myself,  that,  taking  the  tenet  as  it 
seems  generally  to  be  apprehended  and  set  forth,  I  am  unable  to  see  why  the 
implication  alleged  is  not  well  founded,  with  the  abatement  that  by  "  no  agency 
in  spiritual  things"  is  to  be  fairly  understood  no  active  agency  in  the  particular 
matter  of  which  he  is  treating — the  conversion  of  the  soul  to  God.  If  I  under- 
stand the  commonly  received  doctrine  it  is,  that  God,  for  infinitely  wise  reasons 
existing  in  his  own  mind,  determined  from  eternity,  by  a  decree  of  election^  to 
save  a  certain  specific  number  of  the  human  race  in  virtue  of  the  atoning  work 
of  Christ,  and  that  too  wholly  irrespective  of  their  own  prior  merits  or  demerits ; 
and  in  this  consists  essentially  the  sovereignty  of  the  saving  purpose.  These 
persons  are  brought  successively  into  being,  and  by  the  peculiar  orderings  of 
Divine  Providence  are  brought  under  a  system  of  means  and  influences,  which, 
though  well  adapted  in  their  own  nature  to  work  efficaciously  on  their  hearts 
and  to  result  in  their  renewal,  are  yet  in  themselves  powerless  to  produce  that 
issue  without  the  special  putting  forth  of  an  act  of  the  divine  power,  which  shall 
quicken  them  from  the  death  of  trespasses  and  sins  into  newness  of  life.  This 
is  held  to  be  an  instantaneous  act,  though  usually,  perhaps  always,  preceded  by 
a  series  of  mental  exercises,  more  or  less  distressing,  termed  convictions,  but 
which  have  not  in  their  own  nature  any  intrinsic  efficacy  to  work  the  requisite 
change,  and  to  translate  the  soul  from  darkness  into  light.  In  this  emergency 
the  Omnipotence  of  grace  interposes,  and,  in  compliance  with  the  eternal  decree' 
of  election,  by  the  infusion  of  a  principle  of  divine  life  enables  the  trembling 
sinner  to  avail  himself  of  the  provided  remedy  and  to  believe  to  the  saving  of 


154 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


his  soul.  In  all  this  process  there  is  indeed  involved  the  agency  of  truth  as  an 
instrumental  means  to  the  designed  end ;  but  still  in  the  very  act  and  article  of 
being  born  again  the  soul  is  necessarily  passive,  and  believes  and  loves  sim- 
ply because  it  is  enabled  to  do  so  in  consequence  of  the  present  transforming  in- 
fluence of  the  Holy  Spirit  which  makes  the  man  a  new  creature  in  Christ  Jesus. 
In  virtue  of  this  process  all  boasting  on  the  part  of  man  is  excluded,  and  a  ground 
laid  for  the  ascription  of  all  the  glory  of  his  salvation  to  the  gratuitous  mercy  of 
God  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  the  top  stone  in  the  fabric  of  his  praise,  is  laid  with 
erying,  "  Grace,  grace,  unto  it." 

This,  I  believe,  is  a  fair  exhibition  of  the  orthodox  doctrine  on  this  head,  and 
I  am  wholly  at  a  loss  to  perceive  in  what  respect  injustice  is  done  to  it  by  the 
use  of  language  implying  the  utmost  degree  of  passivity  in  the  subject  at  the  mo- 
ment of  the  transition,  and  this  moment  is  the  hinge  on  which  his  eternal  destiny 
turns.  The  doctrine  certainly  holds  that  the  sinner,  up  to  the  instant  of  the 
change,  is  spiritually  dead,  and  from  the  instant  of  the  change,  is  spiritually 
alive;  there  can  be,  on  this  view,  no  medium  between  death  and  life.  The 
change  too  is  wrought  by  a  power  entirely  ab  extra  to  the  soul  itself.  It  is  the 
direct  act  of  Omnipotence.  Must  not  the  soul,  then,  be  passive  in  the  true  re- 
generating process Regeneration  is  on  this  view  re-birth,  and  what  active  agency 
has  the  soul  in  this  process  more  than  the  infant  has  in  the  process  of  natural  birth? 
I  am  well  aware  of  the  various  refinements  which  theologians  have  spun  and 
woven  in  regard  to  this  subject,  and  by  which  they  would  fain  escape  the  con- 
clusion of  this  entire  and  absolute  passivity  in  the  act  of  the  soul's  being  born 
again,  but  "  to  this  complexion  it  comes  at  last."  If  the  subject  of  the  work  is 
at  one  moment  spiritually  dead,  and  the  next  spiritually  alive,  and  the  quicken- 
ing has  been  effected  by  the  power  of  God  and  not  by  the  free  agency  of  man, 
then  I  wo.uld  respectfully  inquire  in  what  particular  Swedenborg  has  misrepre- 
sented the  doctrine,  when  he  says  that  man  in  this  matter  is  "  like  a  stock  and 
is  converted  as  inanimate  ?"  The  question,  you  will  observe,  is  not  whether  the 
doctrine  is  theologically  true  or  false.  It  is  simply  whether  he  has  given  an 
unfair  and  distorted  account  of  it.  Of  this  let  the  candid  and  intelligent  judge.  I 
have  very  little  doubt  as  to  the  verdict.  The  point  is  so  palpably  obvious  in 
itself,  that  the  infusion  of  divine  life  into  a  soul  spiritually  dead  is  effected  with- 
out any  real  co-operation  on  the  part  of  the  subject,  that  there  is  no  possibility 
of  questioning  it,  nor  do  I  anticipate  from  yourself  the  least  gainsaying  on  this 
head.  On  the  contrary,  what  I  anticipate  is  the  direct  interrogatory,  "  If  the  fact 
be  not  so,  how  is  it To  what  is  man's  regeneration  owing  if  not  to  the  mighty 
power  of  God  immediately  and  sovereignly  exerted,  and  how  can  this  be  but  in 
accomplishment  of  a  previous ;?urpose  to  that  effect,  or,  in  otlier  words,  in  conse- 
quence of  an  eteirnal  decree  of  election,  which  is  but  another  name  for  the  doc- 
trine of  predestination .'" 

This  is  a  fair  question,  and  though  my  contracted  limits  will  prevent  my  doing 
any  but  a  very  partial  justice  to  the  subject,  I  will  still  endeavor  to  present  Swe- 
denborg's  teachings  on  this  point  in  such  a  light  that,  whether  or  not  they  shall 
carry  with  them  a  constraining  evidence  of  truth,  they  shall  at  least  appear  in 
very  marked  contrast  with  the  established  tenet,  and  may  possibly  also  produce 
the  conviction  that  what  he  says  of  the  interruU  state  of  the  members  of  the  Synod 
of  Dort  is  not  so  very  far  from  the  truth. 


fi^dttv^     'tiot^         Ck-^tX^  -iUcA)  LO^^! 


If.  I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


155 


And  firet  as  to  Predestination ,-  so  far  as  thi%  doctrine  coincides  with  the  doctrine 
of  a  universal  Providence  acting  by  specific  means,  in  accordance  with  the  moral 
freedom  of  creatures,  and  with  a  view  to  eternal  ends  of  Love  and  Mercy,  Swe- 
denborg  instead  of  rejecting,  unequivocally  asserts  it,  and  his  elaborate  treatise 
on  "  Divine  Providence,"  of  which  you  speak  respectfully,  abounds  in  illustra-^ 
tions  of  it.  But  so  far  as  the  term  is  employed  in  a  technical  theological  sense, 
implying  the  selection,  by  a  fixed  and  arbitrary  decree,  of  a  certain  portion  of  the, 
human  race,  as  the  subjects  of  salvation  to  the  exclusion  or  preterition  of  the 
rest,  he  does  indeed  most  emphatically  discard  it,  as  I  think  every  one  will  who 
allows  himself  to  reflect  calmly  upon  the  subject,  and  who  ventures  to  ask  him- 
self the  question,  whether  he  can  conceive  the  possibility  of  the  existence,  in  the 
Divine  mind,  of  any  reasons  consistent  with  his  perfections,  which  should  have 
dictated  the  purpose  to  save  a  part  of  a  fallen  race  on  the  bare  ground  of  elec- 
tion, when  they  were  all  in  precisely  the  same  circumstances,  and  the  value  of  one 
soul,  in  view  of  its  stupendous  destiny,  as  great  as  that  of  another.  I  am  unable 
to  perceive,  for  myself,  any  possible  way  of  reconciling  this  with  the  prompt- 
ings which  would  naturally  move  the  infinite  Benevolence,  on  the  same  princi- 
ples on  which  it  could  determine  to  save  a  part,  to  save  the  whole.  By  the 
very  supposition,  there  could  be  no  greater  intrinsic  obstacle  to  be  overcome  in 
the  recovery  of  the  whole  than  in  that  of  a  part.  Why  then  should  not  the  pur- 
pose of  salvation  comprise  the  whole  The  opposite  view  involves  the  neces- 
sity of  ascribing  to  the  Most  High  a  partiality  which,  on  the  ground  assumed,  is 
wholly  repugnant,  not  only  to  ourmstinctive^'but  to  our  most  enlightened,  notions 
of  the  divine  attributes. 

I  canuot,  of  course,  be  ignorant  of  the  reply  which  will  naturally  be  made  to 
this,  viz.  that  inasmuch  as  the  fact  is  indisputable  that  a  part  only  of  the  race 
are  saved,  and  as  they  are  saved  by  omnipotent  grace,  which  cannot  be  sup- 
posed to  act  without  a  previous  purpose,  we  are  therefore  shut  up  to  the  conclu- 
sion of  such  a  purpose,  and  this  purpose  can  only  be  regarded  as  eternal,  and 
if  eternal,  therefore  sovereign.  To  this  I  answer,  that  the  proposed  solution  of 
the  problem  inevitably  necessitates  the  consequence,  that  man  is  absolutely  pas- 
sive in  the  turning  point  from  death  to  life,  as  much  so  as  a  stock  or  a  statue,  and 
therefore  what  Swedenborg  has  said  of  the  doctrine  in  that  respect  is  demon- 
stratively confirmed.  Are  you  willing  to  admit  this.'  But  suppose  a  man  to  be 
saved  on  this  principle — suppose  he  finds  himself  in  heaven,  as  heaven  is  com- 
monly conceived,  in  virtue  solely  of  a  sovereign  act  of  grace — though  he  may 
be  constrained  to  acknowledge  a  discriminating  mercy  in  his  own  happy  lot,  yet 
will  it  be  no  diminution  of  his  bliss  to  think  that  he  is  there,  while  thousands  of 
others,  of  equal  claims  with  himself — that  is,  of  none  at  all — are  left  to  perish 
With  his  mind  enlarged  to  apprehend  more  fully  the  genius  of  the  divine  coun- 
sels which  have  secured  his  salvation,  will  not  the  thought  that  this  amazing 
weight  of  glory  is  the  result  of  a  purely  arbitrary  decree  of  Jehovah  send  an 
mward  chill  upon  the  fervor  of  his  grateful  praise  ?  Can  the  highest  raptures 
imparted  by  the  efiiuence'of  the  divine  Love  to  his  soul,  obscure  his  perceptions 
of  the  demands  of  the  divine  Wisdom,  or  blind  him  to  the  fact  that  that  Love  has 
wrought  its  issues  in  his  behalf  at  the  expense  of  Wisdom .'  For  what  idea  can 
he  have  of  a  Wisdom  which  does  not  act  from  adequate  Reasons But  what 
Reasons  can  he  assign  to  himself  for  his  being  in  heaven  while  so  many  othere 


136 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


though  no  more  hell-deserving  than'himself,  are  yet  in  hell  ?  Can  he  help  see- 
ing that  it  is  in  consequence  solely  of  an  arbitrary  decree  ?  And  will  not  an 
inward  shudder  come  orer  him  at  the  bare  thought  of  a  God  of  infinite  perfec- 
tions being  prompted  by  nothing  higher  than  mere  arbilranj  motives  to  any 
action  whatever  ?  Would  not  such  a  conclusion  mar  the  life  of  all  his  joys  ? 
Must  not  infinite  Excellence  suffer  in  his  esteem  ?  That  he  is  made  the  benefi- 
ciary of  this  electing  grace — that  this  astounding  favoritism  is  made  to  redound 
to  his  advantage — will  not  of  itself  relieve  his  mind  as  to  the  overwhelming  prob- 
lem involved  in  the  mode  of  its  being  conferred  upon  him.  Neither  will  the 
assurance  that  no  injustice\i2i&  been  done  to  the  lost  silence,  the  irrepressible  voice 
of  his  bosom  in  view  of  the  unmeasured  diversity  in  their  lot  and  his.  His  illu- 
minated reason  will  never  cease  to  demand  why  the  same  justice  that  has  been 
meted  out  to  them  has  not  heen  awarded  to  him  also  ;  and  the  assertion  of  a 
mere  design  to  illustrate  the  Divine  Sovereignty — to  show  forth  the  simple  good 
pleasure  of  the  Most  High — will  be  far  from  satisfying  him.  He  can  conceive  of 
no  object  to  be  gained  by  the  simple  display  of  sovereignty,  though  the  sovereign- 
ty of  a  God,  which  will  be  sufficient  to  countervail  the  disparagement  that  must, 
from  such  a  source,  accrue  to  his  general  attributes. 

The  only  rejoinder  which  I  can  conceive  as  being  made  to  this  is,  that  such  a 
procedure  on  the  part  of  God,  cannot  properly  be  termed  arbitrary,  since,  although 
we  may  be  unable  to  apprehend  them,  yet  we  must  necessarily  take  for  grant- 
ed the  fact  of  some  adequate  reasons  existing  in  the  Divine  mind  as  the  basis  of 
its  determinations.  But  this  is  the  very  point  in  debate.  I  contend  that  the 
human  mind  cannot  conceive  the  possibility  of  any  other  reason  than  the  bare 
display  of  sovereignty.  That  is  to  say,  that  God  resolves  to  make  one  to  difier  from 
another  in  respect  to  his  eternal  destiny  sunply  to  show  that  he  can  make  him 
to  differ.  And  how  unlike  is  this  to  the  case  of  a  man  whO',  with  a  chess-board 
'before  him,  touches  one  of  the  squares  rather  than  another,  merely  in  order  to 
evince  the  fact  that  he  can  touch  any  one  of  them  that  he  pleases  ?  If  this  is 
not  the  doctrine,  what  is  it What  else  is  assigned,  as  the  ground  of  election 
than  the  design  to  show  that  God  may  do  what  he  will  with  his  own .'  Is  it 
affirmed  that  he  may  have  other  motives  which  he  has  not  seen  fit  to  reveal? 
If  so,  I  ask  where  this  is  taught .'  Do  the  Scriptures  declare  anything  of  the 
kind  .'  Do  they  give  the  slightest  intimation  that  the  salvation  of  a  human  soul 
is  owing  to  anything  else  than  the  pure  self-moving  love  of  the  infinitely  benig- 
nant Jehovah,  who  is  moved  to  goodness  for  goodness'  sake,  and  who  must, 
from  the  necessity  of  his  nature,  be  as  kindly  affected  towards  one  of  his  crea- 
tures as  towards  another,  provided  their  moral  position  in  regard  to  Him  is  the 
same What  possible  reasons  then  can  be,  for  one  moment,  imagined  in  the 
Divine  mind  on  which  to  found  a  decree  of  election  We  admit  not  the  charge 
of  presumption  in  such  a  sentence.  While  we  do  not  assume  to  fathom  the 
depths  of  the  Infinite  Wisdom,  there  are  some  conclusions  which  we  hesitate 
not  to  afhrm  respecting  them,  because  they  grow  directly  out  of  the  clearest  in- 
tuitions of  the  intellect  of  man  as  constituted  by  its  Maker ;  and  this  is  one,  that 
there  could  not  possibly  be  any  other  than  arbitrary  reasons,  which  should  dic- 
tate tlie  salvation  of  Paul  in  preference  to  that  of  Judas,  when  both  are  previoridy 
supposed  to  be  in  precisely  the  same  circumstances.  The  same  promptings  which 
would  embrace  one  in  a  saving  purpose  must  necessarily  embrace  the  other. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


But  are  all  saved Certainly  not ;  but  the  reason  why  they  are  not  is  the 
farthest  possible  from  any  absolute  or  sovereign  decree  securing  the  salvation 
of  one  and  pretermitting  another.  The  boundless  benevolence  of  the  Deity  pre- 
destinates all  to  heaven  by  the  very  fact  of  having  provided  a  redemption  which 
1^  available  to  all,  but  the  scheme  of  this  redemption  is  such  as  has  respect  to  the 
,  moral  freedom  of  its  subjects.  It  must  be  voluntarily  accepted  and  appropriated, 
inasmuch  as  this  very  appropriation  is  the  grand  constituent  element  of  heaven. 
There  neither  is  nor  can  be  any  other  heaven  than  what  consists  in  the  right ^ 
ji^ioral  state  of  the  inner  man.  Such  a  state  can  now  be  restored  to  man  in  con- 
) sequence  of  what  the  Lord  has  done  as  Mediator,  but  the  restoration  can  nevery 
(be^ffected  on  any  scheme  which  involves  the  suspension,  for  a  single  instant, 
^,  of  his  entire  freedom  as  a  moral  agent.  His  own  active  co-operation  is  impera- 
tively requisite  in  eveiy  stage  of  the  progress  of  his  regeneration,  or  in  other 
swords,  of  his  salvation,  because  the  very  essence  of  this  salvation  is  in  the  state 
and  actings  of  his  will.  To  the  question  how  the  progress  can  begin  at  all,  on 
Swedenborg's  principles,  when  man  is  by  nature,  as  he  teaches,  altogether  evil 
and  averse  to  God  and  goodness,  and  unable  to  originate  volitions  directly 
contrary  to  his  ruling  love,  I  reply,  that  it  is  essential  to  his  freedom  that  he 
should  have  the  power  of  compelling  himself  to  abstinence  from  particular  acts  of 
evil,  and  of  shunning  them  as  sins  against  God,  and  when  he  does  this  there 
follows  not  merely  the  negation  of  so  much  evil,  but  the  inflowing  of  so  much 
positive  good  from  the  Divine  fountain  of  good,  which  is  like  the  light  of  the 
sun  that  is  ever  pressing  for  entrance  into  the  least  crevice  or  opening  that  will 
allow  it  to  penetrate.  "  The  life  of  love  and  charity,"  says  Swedenborg,  "  opens 
the  interior  mind  by  the  influx  of  light  from  heaven,  the  life  of  love  and  charity 
being  the  divine  life  itself;  for  the  Lord  loves  every  one  and  does  good  to  every 
one  from  love  ;  wherefore  when  that  life  is  received,  then  the  Lord  is  present, 
and  is  conjoined  to  the  recipient,  consequently  he  flows  into  his  superior  mind, 
which  is  called  the  spiritual  mind,  and  by  light  from  himself  opens  it."  Every 
influx  of  this  nature,  though  perhaps  mappreciably  slight  at  first,  does  something 
towards  weakening  the  reigning  power  of  evil,  and  communicating  strength  to 
resist  its  further  encroachments.  Every  act  of  self-compulsion  of  this  kind  opens 
the  way  for  fresh  supplies  of  the  Divine  Love  and  Life  to  flow  in,  whereby  the 
soul  becomes  more  and  more  re-inforced  by  heavenly  impulses  and  tendencies, 
and  voluntary  action  in  the  right  direction  more  easy  and  habitual.  This  we  re- 
gard as  the  usual  commencing  process  of  regeneration,  which  far  from  being 
an  instantaneous,  is  an  everlasting  act.  The  true  Christian  is  for  ever  regenerat- 
ing; that  is,  becoming  more  and  more  conformed  and  conjoined  to  the  Lord. 
The  process  of  the  work  is  never,  indeed,  entirely  uniform  and  equable.  It  pro- 
ceeds by  alternations  and  crises — by  temptations  and  combats — by  advances 
and  recessions — but  the  course  is  on  the  whole  onward,  and  the  believer's  re- 
moval to  heaven  is  but  one  stage  in  this  course,  for  he  has  here  entered  upon 
his  true  immortal  life,  and  heaven,  as  a  state,  is  but  the  normal  form  of  its  devel- 
opment. "  The  common  idea,"  says  Mr.  Clissold,  "  with  regard  to  Regeneration, 
is,  that  it  signifies  re-birth,  or  being  born  again,  and  that,  as  a  man  can  be  natu- 
rally born  but  once,  so  he  can  be  spiritually  born  but  once  ;  the  consequence  is, 
that  Regeneration,  whether  supposed  to  take  place  at  baptism,  or  in  subsequent 
life,  is  considered  to  be  a  simple  or  single  act,  •  incapable  of  latitude  or  increase. ' 


158 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


This  error  arises,  as  we  conceive,  like  all  others  in  theology,  from  a  spiritual  truth 
being  naturalized,  or  degraded  to  the  level  of  .the  merely  natural  mind.  For, 
though  a  man  can  be  born  but  once  naturally,  and  hence  also  naturally  can  die 
but  once  ;  yet,  because  the  body  can  die  but  once,  it  does  not  hence  follow  that 
the  soul  can  die  but  once.  The  life  of  the  natural  body  is  but  of  one  nature, 
which  never  ascends  beyond  that  which  it  originally  was ;  it  can  never  be  ele- 
vated out  of  itself  into  a  life  of  a  higher  order,  for  animal  or  corporeal  life  is  but 
one,  and  hence  the  body  is  but  once  born,  comes  to  but  one  perfection,  and  dies 
but  one  death.  The  case  is  altogether  different  with  the  life  of  the  spirit,  which, 
while  we  are  living  in  this  world,  may  be  elevated  out  of  its  plane  or  level,  into 
another  that  is  higher,  and  this  unceasingly.  Every  sinful  habit  to  which  the 
soul  dies  is  the  occasion  of  a  distinct  death ;  and  it  may  have  to  die  as  many 
deaths  as  it  has  sins  unto  which  it  must  die.  The  same  is  true  with  regard  to 
the  evils  inherited  by  birth  before  they  descend  into  ultimate  acts.  As  every 
evil  has  its  own  life  in  the  soul,  so  also,  in  being  destroyed,  it  must  undergo  its 
own  death;  hence  the  soul  may  die  daily;  and  as  it  may  die  daily,  so,  in  a 
corresponding  sense,  it  may  be  said  to  be  born  daily;  hence,  as  there  may  be  a 
perpetual  death,  so  may  there  be  also  a  perpetual  birth,  hence  a  perpetual  gene- 
ration, and  hence  a  perpetual  regeneration.  This  state  of  generation  and  regen- 
eration is  the  eternal  spring  of  the  soul ;  and  hence  we  see  the  true  reason  for 
which,  to  angelic  beings,  heaven  is  a  season  of  perpetual  spring.  Besides,  it  is 
to  be  remembered,  that  we  cannot  but  afRx  to  the  term  regeneration'a  sense 
more  enlarged  than  the  one  it  commonly  bears,  and  which  appears  to  be  its 
more  immediate  sense  ;  for,  properly  speaking,  it  does  not  signify  le-birth,  but 
re-generation,  te-begctting,  or  re -production.  Now,  as  all  the  processes  of  growth 
which  take  place  in  a  plant  or  animal,  may  be  said  to  be  the  processes  of  gen- 
eration, in  the  more  enlarged  sense  of  that  term,  so  everj'^  progression  of  the  soul 
in  spiritual  life,  we  consider  to  be  a  process  of  generation ;  hence  spiritual  af- 
fections and  thoughts  are  the  result  of  spiritual  generation,  and  the  way  to  purify 
or  exalt  their  nature  is  by  a  perpetual  process  of  regeneration.  This  is  no  merely 
speculative  or  metaphysical  doctrine,  for  it  necessarily  originates  this  practical 
truth,  that  evil  is  not  removed  from  the  soul  in  an  instant,  as  filth  is  washed 
from  the  body ;  evil  can  be  removed  only  by  a  death,  and  good  can  be  received 
only  by  its  being  generated  within  us ;  hence  there  is  no  such  thing  as  right- 
eousness being  imputed  without  being  imparted,  and  the  popular  doctrine  of  Justi- 
fication by  Faith,  is  one  which  we  consider  to  be  contrary  to  God's  Word,  and 
contradictory  to  the  real  nature  and  constitution  of  things." — Clissold's  Letter,  p  48. 

In  following  the  regenerate  soul  ideally  onward  to  the  consummation  of  its 
bliss  in  the  heavenly  mansions,  I  have  asked  myself  again  and  again  what  is  lost 
or  lacking  to  it,  as  a  ground  of  thanksgiving  and  praise,  on  the  view  now  pre- 
sented. Is  not  the  man  saved  by  grace  ?  Is  he  not  raised  to  angelic  beatitude 
solely  in  consequence  of  the  gracious,  unbought,  unsought  intervention  of  the 
Divine  love  and  mercy  in  his  behalf?  Must  he  not  otherwise  have  perished  in 
his  iniquities.'  Will  his  golden  harp  send  forth  one  note  less  to  swell  the  sym- 
phony of  heaven,  that  he  has  been  saved,  not  by  an  arbitrary  act  of  mercy,  but 
"  by  a  method  perfectly  in  accordance  both  with  the  highest  attributes  of  his 
Maker  and  with  the  constituent  principles  of  his  own  nature — a  method  which 
has  left  his  freedom  inviolate  and  the  perfections  of  the  Deity  unimpeached  r 


te^i«^w^j 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


159 


Nothing,  meantime,  is  involved  in  the  scheme  now  presented  which  derogates  ^ 
at  all  from  the  prescience  and  the  true  predestination  of  Jehovah.  In  the  nature  , 
of  the  case  he  foreknown  the  moral  history  of  every  individual  of  the  race,  and 
tile  issue  of  every  event,  but  he  foreordains  or  decrees  only  his  own  acts,  and  not  / 
the  volitions  of  his  creatures,  as  this  would  bring  him  into  immediate  concur-  0 
rence  with  voluntary  acts  opposed  to  his  own  will  and  which  he  has  expresslY^>' 
forbidden. 

Such  then  is  the  ground  on  which  you  charge  the  system  of  Swedenborg  with 
misrepresentuig  and  denying  the  received  doctrine  of  Predestination.  I  do  not 
admit  that  he  has  misrepresented  it  and  if  he  has  not,  he  ought,  I  conceive,  to 
deny  it,  as  all  his  adherents  most  unequivocally  do.  Still,  we  will  reconsider 
our  ground  whenever  you  or  any  one  else  will  show  us  adequate  cause. 

Vir.  The  Resurrection  of  the  Body.—"  Swedenborg  rejects  the  common  doctrine 
of  the  resurrection.  The  Scriptures  represent  the  resurrection  of  all  who  have 
died  as  a  future  event  ,•  and  they  describe  the  manner  in  which  they  will  be  raised, 
and  the  great  change  which  will  be  made  in  the  resurrection  body,  and  the  cor- 
responding change  which  will  be  made  in  those  who  will  be  alive  at  that  time. 
But  our  author  denies  such  a  resurrection,  and  with  some  false  teachers  men- 
tioned by  the  Apostle,  holds,  that  the  resurrection  of  all  who  have  died,  '  is  al- 
ready past.'  Deatjifand  resurrection  take  place,  he  says,  at  or  near  the  same 
time.  This  he  learnt  partly,  it  seems,  from  philosophical  reasoning,  as  Profes- 
sor Bush  did,  and  partly  from  the  conversation  of  angels.  But  philosophical 
reasoning  is  by  no  means  infallible ;  and  Swedenborg's  angels  were  only  dead 
men,  who  often  betrayed  their  ignorance,  and  committed  many  mistakes,  and 
did  not  pretend  to  be  divinely  inspired,  and  sometimes  needed  and  received  in- 
formation from  Swedenborg.  Both  he  and  his  followers  are  exceedingly  con- 
fident in  their  denial  of  the  future  resurrection  of  the  body,  though  this  has  been 
believed  by  the  Christian  Church  from  the  days  of  the  Apostles  to  the  present 
time." 

This  is  a  point  which  I  shall  not  attempt  to  argue.  I  have  already  dwelt  some- 
what upon  it  in  a  previous  letter,  and  have  through  various  other  channels  pre- 
sented my  own  and  Swedenborg's  views  with  sufficient  distinctness  to  the  pub- 
lic. I  content  myself  with  simply  offering  one  or  two  additional  paragraphs  in 
opposition  to  the  current  doctrine,  leaving  it  to  the  reader  to  judge  which  theory 
carries  with  it  the  most  constraining  evidence  of  truth.  As  to  the  alleged  falli- 
bility of  philosophical  reasoning,  so  far  as  it  implies  that  the  results  of  that  rea- 
soning are  not  always  sound,  I  have  no  disposition  to  dispute  with  you :  but  I  ven- 
ture to  make  the  same  assertion  respecting  Scriptural  interpretation.  It  does  not 
strike  me  that  even  a  tenet  which  "  has  been  believed  by  the  Christian  Church 
from  the  days  of  the  Apostles  to  the  present  time"  is  necessarily  infallible,  nor 
do  I  think  any  construction  of  the  Sacred  Oracles  can  be  either  infaUible  or  cor- 
rect which  conflicts  with  the  results  of  ju^t  philosophical  reasoning  And  as  to 
the  mistakes  and  ignorance  of  "  Swedenborg's  angels,"  I  shall  be  prompt  to 
admit  them  when  they  are  pointed  out.  You  seem  frequently  to  lose  sight  of 
the  distinction  which  he  continually  makes  between  the  angels  of  heaven  and 
the  spirits  of  the  world  of  spirits,  who  are  in  a  far  inferior  degree  of  illumination. 
I  am  not  aware  that  Swedenborg  anywhere  represents  the  angels  as  needing  or 
receiving  information  from  him.  I  should  certainly  think,  however,  that  they  did 


160 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


need  it,  and  probably  received  it,  if  they  taught  that  the  doctrine  of  the  resur- 
rection was  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  material  body  to  be  accom- 
plished at  some  future  period. — But  I  yield  my  space  to  a  higher  authority. 

"  I  have  discoursed  with  some  within  afew  days  after  their  decease,  and  because 
they  were  then  recently  come,  they  were  in  a  light  there,  which  differed  little  in 
their  sight  from  the  light  of  the  world.  And  because  the  light  appeared  such  to 
them,  they  doubted  whether  they  had  light  from  any  other  source,  wherefore 
they  were  taken  into  the  first  of  heaven,  where  the  light  was  still  brighter,  and 
from  thence  speaking  with  me,  they  said,  that  they  had  never  before  seen  such 
a  light ;  and  this  took  place  when  the  sun  was  already  set.  They  then  wondered 
that  spirits  had  eyes  by  which  they  saw,  when  yet  they  believed  in  the  life  of 
the  body,  that  the  life  of  spirits  was  merely  thought,  and  indeed  abstractedly 
without  a  subject,  by  reason  that  they  had  not  been  able  to  think  of  any  subject 
of  thought,  inasmuch  as  they  had  not  seen  any ;  and  this  being  the  case,  they 
had  not  then  perceived  otherwise,  than  that  because  it  was  mere  thought  alone, 
it  was  dissipated,  together  with  the  body  in  which  it  was,  just  as  any  aura  or 
any  fire,  unless  it  should  miraculously  be  kept  together  and  subsist  from  the  Lord. 
And  they  saw  then  how  easily  the  learned  fall  into  error  concerning  life  after 
death,  and  that  they  more  than  others  do  not  believe  except  in  things  which 
they  see.  Therefore  they  were  surprised  now,  that  they  not  only  had  thought, 
but  also  sight,  and  likewise  the  other  senses ;  and  especially  that  they  appear  to 
themselves  altogether  as  men,  that  they  mutually  see  and  hear  each  other,  con- 
verse together,  feel  their  own  members  by  the  touch,  and  this  more  exquisitely 
than  in  the  life  of  the  body.  Hence  they  were  amazed  that  man  is  altogether 
ignorant  of  this,  while  he  lives  in  the  world ;  and  they  pitied  the  human  race, 
that  they  know  nothing  of  such  things,  because  they  believe  nothing,  and  more 
especially  they  who  are  in  superior  light,  namely,  they  who  are  within  the 
church,  and  have  the  Word.  Some  of  them  believed  no  otherwise,  than  that 
men  after  death  would  be  as  ghosts,  in  which  opinion  they  confirmed  them- 
selves from  the  spectres  of  which  they  had  heard ;  but  hence  they  drew  no 
other  conclusion,  than  that  it  was  some  gross  vital  principle,  which  is  first  ex- 
haled from  the  life  of  the  body,  but  which  again  falls  back  to  the  dead  body,  and 
is  thus  extinguished.  But  some  believed,  that  they  were  first  to  rise  again  at  the 
time  of  the  last  judgment,  when  the  world  was  to  perish,  and  then  with  the 
body,  which,  though  fallen  into  dust,  would  be  then  collected  together,  and  thus 
they  would  rise  again  with  bone  and  flesh.  And  whereas  mankind  have  in 
vainfor  many  ages  expected  that  last  judgment  or  destruction  of  the  world,  they 
have  fallen  into  the  error  that  they  should  never  rise  again;  thinking  nothing  in 
this  case  of  that  which  they  have  learned  from  the  Word,  and  from  which  they 
have  also  sometimes  so  spoken,  that  when  man  dies,  his  soul  is  in  the  hand  of 
God,  among  the  happy  or  unhappy  according  to  the  life  which  he  had  acquaint- 
ed himself  with,  and  was  become  familiar  to ;  neither  of  what  the  Lord  said 
concerning  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus.  But  they  were  instructed,  that  every 
one's  last  judgment  is  when  he  dies,  and  that  then  he  appears  to  himself  en- 
dowed with  a  body  as  in  the  world,  and  to  enjoy  every  sense  as  in  the  world, 
but  more  pure  and  exquisite,  inasmuch  as  corporeal  things  do  not  hinder,  and 
those  things  which  are  of  the  light  of  the  world  do  not  overshadow  those  which 
are  of  the  light  of  heaven  ;  thus  that  they  are  in  a  body  as  it  were  purified  ;  and 
that  after  death,  the  body  cannot  possibly  partake  of  what  is  bony  and  fleshy 
such  as  it  had  in  the  world,  because  this  would  be  to  be  again  encompassed 
with  earthly  dust.  With  some  I  conversed  on  this  subject  on  the  same  day  that 
their  bodies  were  entombed,  who  saw  through  my  eyes  their  own  corpse,  the 
bier,  and  the  ceremony  of  burial ;  and  they  said,  that  they  reject  that  corpse,  and 
that  it  had  served  them  for  uses  in  the  world  in  which  they  had  been,  and  that 
they  live  now  in  a  body  which  serves  them  for  uses  in  the  world  in  which  they 
now  are.  They  wished  also,  that  I  should  tell  this  to  their  relations  who  were  in 
mourning :  but  it  was  given  to  reply,  that  if  I  .shovdd  tell  them,  they  would  mock 
at  it,  inasmuch  as  what  they  cannot  themselves  see  with  their  own  eyes,  they 
believe  to  be  nothing,  and  thus  they  would  reckon  it  among  the  visions  which 
are  illusions.    For  they  cannot  be  brought  to  believe,  that  as  men  see  each  other 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


161 


with  their  eves,  so  spirits  see  each  other  with  theirs,  and  that  man  cannot  see 
spirits  unless  with  the  eyes  of  liis  spirit,  and  that  he  then  sees  them  when  the 
Lord  opens  the  internal  sijs^ht,  as  was  done  to  the  ])rophets,  who  saw  spirits  and«-.:. 
angels,  and  also  many  things  of  heaven.    Whether  they  who  live  at  this  day  " 
would  have  believed  those  things,  if  they  had  lived  at  that  time,  there  is  room  ■ 
to  doubt."— ^.  C.  4527.  .  ' 

Vlir.  Rejection  of  a  Portion  of  the  Scriptures. — "  I  must  here  notice  again  thev-"^ 
doctrine  of  Swedenborg  respecting  the  Scriptures ;  a  doctrine  which  must  be  -'t 
regarded  as  of  more  consequence  than  almost  any  other.    He  excluded  from  the  ,  T" 
l^ord  of  God  about  one  sixth  part  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  about  one  half  of}  ^ 
ithe  New.  /  The  books  he  received  as  the  word  of  God  are  those  which  he  foundp  ^ 
xo  have  the  internal  or  spiritual  sense.    He  rejected  so  many  of  the  books  con- 
tained in  our  Scriptures,  because  he  found  them  incapable  of  the  internal  sense 
or  senses.    All  parts  of  what  he  acknowledged  to  be  the  word  of  God,  every 
word,  every  letter,  and  every  point  had  three  senses,  a  natural_  sense,  a  spiritual 
sense,  and  a  celestial  sense.    Why  those  parts  of  Scripture  which  he  rejected 
were,  in  his  judgment,  incapable  of  the  higher  sense,  more  than  some  otherparts, 
we  are  not  informed.    *    *    *    The  attempt  of  Swedenborg  to  propagate  an 
opinion  concerning  the  Scriptures  so  contrary  to  the  teachings  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, is  sufficient  completely  to  undermine  his  authority,  and  to  cast  an  air  of 
suspicion  on  all  that  he  wrote." 

The  grounds  of  this  accusation  have  already  been  considered.  It  will  be  un- 
necessary to  re-adduce  them.  He  excludes  nothing  from  the  Scriptures  in  any 
other  way  than  by  indicating  the  fact  of  an  interior  spiritual  sense  pertaining  to 
some  books  which  he  says  does  not  attach  to  others ;  and  the  reasons  assigned  for 
this  assertion  T  have  already  brought  before  you.  If  the  present  virtual  charge 
of  garbling  and  mutilating  the  Word  should  ever  be  repeated,  I  hope  it  will  not 
be  without  bestowing  some  consideration  upon  the  arguments  urged  in  behalf 
of  his  positions.  I  merely  add  an  extract  relative  to  the  fact  of  a  three- fold  sense 
which  finds  so  little  favor  in  your  eyes  and  so  little  refutation  in  your  logic. 

"  That  there  is  an  internal  or  spiritual  sense  in  the  Word,  in  its  external  or 
natural  sense,  as  a  diamond  in  its  matrix,  or  as  a  beautiful  infant  in  its  •  swad- 
dling clothes,  is  a  truth  which  has  heretofore  been  altogether  unknown  in  the 
Christian  world,  and  hence  also  it  is  altogether  unknown  what  is  meant  by  the 
Consummation  of  the  Age,  the  Coming  of  the  Lord,  the  Last  Judgment,  and  by 
the  New  Jerusalem,  on  which  subjects  many  things  are  spoken  and  predicted  in 
the  Word  of  each  Testament,  both  Old  and  New.  Without  the  unfolding  and 
unswathing  of  the  literal  sense  of  the  Word  by  its  spiritual  sense,  who  can  know 
intellectually  what  is  signified  by  the  things  which  the  Lord  predicted  in  Mat- 
thew xxiv.,  and  also  in  the  Revelations,  and  in  like  manner  in  Daniel,  and  in  the 
Prophets,  in  many  passages Make  the  experiment  yourself,  if  you  are  so  dis- 
posed, by  reading  those  pages  of  the  prophetical  Word,  which  treat  sometimes 
of  wild  beasts  and  cattle,  sometimes  of  forests  and  brakes,  sometimes  of  valleys 
and  mountains,  sometimes  of  bats,  of  ochim,  tziim,  satyrs,  &c.  &c. ;  try  whe- 
ther you  can  perceive  any  thing  divine  therein,  unless  you  believe  it  to  lie  con- 
cealed inwardly,  inasmuch  as  it  was  inspired  of  God,  just  as  a  diamond  lies  con- 
cealed in  its  matrix. 

"To  the  above,  I  shall  add  somewhat  new  from  the  spiritual  world.  The 
rulers  of  the  church,  who  flock  into  that  world  after  death,  are  first  taught  con- 
cerning the  Sacred  Scripture,  as  containing  a  spiritual  sense,  which  in  the  world 
was  unknown  to  them,  and  they  are  also  told,  that  the  angels  of  heaven  are  in 
that  sense,  whilst  man  is  in  the  sense  of  the  letter ;  and  further,  that  a  transla- 
tion, or  change,  of  the  latter  sense,  into  the  former,  is  effected  with  man,  whilst 


162 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


he  reads  t''e  Word  under  holy  inflnences,  and  that  there  is  a  kind  of  unfolding 
or  unswathing,  somewhat  like  the  breaking  of  the  shell  encompassing  an 
almond,  and  the  casting  away  the  shell,  so  that  the  naked  almond  passes  into 
heaven,  and  is  received  by  the  angels ;  and  also  like  a  seed  cast  into  the  earth, 
and  being  there  stripped  of  its  outward  coats,  puts  forth  its  germ.  That  seed  is 
the  Word  in  the  sense  of  the  letter,  and  the  germ  thence  put  forth  is  the  .spiritual 
sense,  and  this  latter  passes  to  the  angels,  but  the  former  rests  with  man  ;  still, 
however,  that  seed  remains  >vith  man  in  his  mind,  as  in  its  ground,  and  in  time 
produces  its  germ,  and  fructifies  it,  if  man,  by  the  seeds  of  life,  which  are  the 
truths  of  faith,  and  the  good  things  of  charity,  is  conjoined  with  the  Lord,  and 
thereby  consociated  with  the  angels." — Hob.  Life  of  Swed.  p.  159-161. 

"  The  word,  which  is  divine  truth  descends  from  the  Lord  through  the  heavens, 
into  the  world,  wherefore  it  is  adapted  to  the  wisdom  of  the  angels  who  are  in 
the  three  heavens,  and  is  also  adapted  to  men  who  are  in  the  natural  world. 
Hence  also  it  is,  that  the  Word  in  its  first  origin  is  altogether  divine,  afterwards 
celestial,  then  spiritual,  and  lastly  natural ;  it  is  celestial  for  the  angels  of  the 
inmost  or  third  heaven,  who  are  called  celestial  angels,  spiritual  for  the  angels  of 
the  second  or  middle  heaven,  who  are  called  spiritual  angels,  and  celestial  and 
spiritual-natural  for  the  angels  of  the  ultimate  or  first  heaven,  who  are  called 
celestial  and  spiritual-natural  angels,  and  natural  for  men  in  the  world,  for  men,  so 
long  as  they  live  in  the  material  body,  think  and  speak  naturally  ;  hence  then  it 
is,  that  the  Word  is  given  with  the  angels  of  each  heaven,  but  with  a  difference 
according  to  the  degree  of  their  wisdom,  intelligence,  and  science ;  and  although 
it  differs  as  to  the  sense  in  each  heaven,  still  it  is  the  same  Word.  The  Divine 
principle  itself,  which  is  in  the  Word  from  the  Lord,  when  it  descends  to  the 
inmost  or  third  heaven,  becomes  divine  celestial,  when  it  thence  descends  to  the 
middle  or  second  heaveii,  it  becomes  divine  spiritual,  and  when  from  this  heaven 
it  descends  to  the  ultimate  or  first,  it  becomes  divine  celestial,  or  spiritual  natu- 
ral, and  lastly,  when  it  thence  descends  into  the  world,  it  becomes  a  divina 
natural  Word,  such  as  it  is  with  us  in  the  letter:  these  successive  derivations  o*. 
the  divine  truth  proceeding  from  the  Lord  himself,  exist  by  virtue  of  correspon. 
deuces  established  from  creation  itself  between  things  superior  and  inferior,  con- 
cerning which,  the  Lord  wilting,  more  will  be  said  hereafter.  The  reason  why 
all  strength,  and  all  power  are  in  the  ultimates  of  di;ine  truth,  thus  in  the  natu- 
ral .sense  of  the  Word,  which  is  the  sense  of  the  letter,  is,  because  this  sense  ii 
the  continent  of  all  the  interior  senses,  viz.  of  the  spiritual  and  celestial,  spoken 
of  above  ;  and  since  it  is  the  continent,  it  is  also  the  basis,  and  in  the  basis  lies 
all  strength;  for  if  things  superior  do  not  rest  upon  their  basis,  they  fall  down 
and  are  dissolved,  as  would  be  tlie  case  with  the  spiritual  and  celestial  things  of 
the  Word  if  they  did  not  rest  upon  the  natural  and  literal  sense,  for  this  not  only 
sustains  the  interior  senses,  but  also  contains  them,  wherefore  the  Word  or  di- 
vine truth,  in  this  sense,  is  not  only  in  its  power,  but  also  in  its  fulness.  From 
these  considerations,  it  also  follows,  that  the  all  of  tin;  doctrine  of  the  church 
ought  to  be  confirmed  from  the  literal  sense  of  the  Word,  and  that  all  the  power 
of  doctrine  isahence  derived." — A.  E.  593. 

Take  the  Scriptures,  as  we  have  them,  in  the  literal  sense,  and  trace  them 
back  to  their  original  source  in  the  mind  of  the  Deity,  ai^  you  are  brought  to  the 
very  primary  element  of  which  they  consist,  viz.  Love  and  Wisdom,  or  in  other 
words.  Affection  and  Intellect.  That  is  to  say,  they  resolve  themselves  into  the 
essential  nature  of  their  Author,  with  whom  there  can  be  no  Truth  but  it  is  vivi- 
fied and  pervaded  by  its  appropriate  Good.  The  Truth  therefore  that  is  to  us 
embodied  in  the  written  oracles  must  previously  have  existed  in  his  own  mind 
independent  of  human  language,  and  supposing  that  Truth  to  go  forth  from 
him,  or  to  descend  to  the  spheres  of  created  intelligences  intermediate  between 
himself  and  man,  it  must  utter  itself  of  course  in  the  form  of  thought  independ- 
ent of  vocal  speech  or  written  language  ;  for  there  are  no  books  of  paper  or 
parchment  in  tlie  heavens.   The  divine  communications  as  they  flow  down- 


5^,  u<->-c     ac^h  u>C'lij^-i-.  ' 

,     i  i  I  /  .     ^  T  >•  ''^ 

,        !  >  .  ■  . 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


163 


ward  must  first  be  published  in  the  interiors  of  the  spirits  who  receive  them,  and 
if  you  suppose  an  order  of  spirits  who  stand  nearer  to  the  Most  High  than  others 
by  reason  of  their  being  more  deeply  imbued  with  affection  or  good,  they  will  natu- 
rally, from  their  predominant  state,  receive  most  readily  that  element  of  the  de- 
scending Word  which  is  kindred  with  the  ruling  element  of  their  own  nature, 
or  the  principle  of  good,  which  has  relation  to  uses  and  ends,  the  distinguishing 
character  of  the  highest  or  celestial  degree,  hi  this  we  see  the  basis  laid  for  the 
celestial  sense  of  the  Word.  It  is  the  sense  which  has  resjiect  to  the  affection  that 
necessarily  enters  in  as  the  life  and  soul  of  ail  thought,  hi  this  sense  are  the 
celestial  angels  by  the  very  constitution  of  their  nature.  But  the  Divine  Word 
in  its  descent,  meets  with  another  order  of  beings,  who,  though  partakers  of  good 
are  yet  more  distinguished  for  wisdom,  and  therefore  are  not  so  much  in  ends  as 
in  causes,  which  are  intrinsically  secondary  to  ends.  To  them  also  the  Word,  ia 
its  progress,  accommodates  itself,  according  to  the  dominant  principle  of  their 
nature,  and  the  sense  which  yields  an  appropriate  pabulum  to  them  is  the  spirit- 
ual, as  they  are  in  the  spiritual  degree,  which  is  the  degree  of  causes.  We  are  still, 
however,  as  yet  above  the  region  of  language  and  written  speech,  because  above 
the  sphere  of  nature,  or  that  of  effects.  Following  the  Word  downward  to  this 
sphere  we  see  it  coming  into  ultimates  by  clothing  itself  in  human  language  and 
yielding  what  is  termed  a  literal  sense,  a  sense  accommodated  to  those  who,  as 
living  in  the  flesh  on  earth,  are  in  the  idlimates  of  nature,  where  the  caiises  operat-, 
ing  from  the  spiritual  sphere  produce  their  effects. 

Thus  then  we  have  the  philosophy  of  the  three  senses  of  the  Word,  founded 
upon  a  threefold  distinction  in  the  orders  of  intelligent  beings,  and  in  close  affinity 
with  Swedenborg's  sublime  doctrine  of  degrees,  the  importance  of  which  as  a  key  to 
all  sound  knowledge  in  every  department  of  the  universe,  the  world  has  yet  to 
learn.  In  view  of  the  explanation  now  given  I  do  not  see  why  I  am  not  entitled 
to  pronounce  the  grand  problem  solved  as  to  the  grounds  of  his  assertions  respect- 
ing the  existence  of  this  threefold  sense.  Must  not  the  fact  necessarily  be  as  he  as- 
serts Is  not  the  principle  virtually  to  be  recognized  in  the  very  book,  the  product 
of  your  own  mind,  which  I  am  now  reviewing  .'  Were  you  not  prompted,  in  the 
first  instance,  by  an  end  of  affectiori  lo  the  inditing  of  the  volume  Your  sujireme 
regard  to  what  you  deem  the  truth  of  God — your  love  for  the  souls  of  your  fellow- 
men — your  anxiety  to  guard  them  from  the  inroads  of  error— were  undoubtedly 
your  moving  impulse ;  and  thus  far  you  were  in  the  sphere  of  ends.  This  im- 
pulse, however,  you  can  easily  perceive,  is  something  superior,  or  rather  interior, 
to  thought.  By  it  your  thought  or  understanding  was  e.\cited  to  put  forth  its  ac- 
tivity and  institute  a  course  of  mental  reasoning  designed  to  bear  upon  the  ap- 
prehended errors  and  fallacies  of  the  system  that  you  would  expose.  In  doing 
this  you  were  operating  in  the  sphere  of  causes.  But  your  purpose  was  still  lack- 
ing completion.  In  order  to  the  attainment  of  the  end  the  cause  must  pass  into 
effect,  and  this  could  only  be  done  by  the  writing  and  publishing  of  the  book.  In 
this  act  your  love  and  wisdom  really  descend  into  idlimates  and  assume  a  natural 
form,  and  in  this  form  the  end,  cause,  and  effect\ctu3.l\y  co-exist  together  and  man- 
ifest the  fulness  of  their  power.  How  pertinently  this  illustrates  Swedenborg's 
doctrine  of  the  Divine  Word  you  can  scarcely  fail  to  see,  nor  will  you  refuse  to 
admit  that  it  is  at  least  somewhat  curious,  that  the  very  principles  on  which  your 
book  is  constructed — a  book  written,  in  great  measure,  to  expose  the  falsities  of 


164  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


t 


v.  ^   Swedenborg's  positions  respecting  the  nature  of  God's  Book — afford  all  but  a 

' ^   downright  demonstration  of  his  truth, 
t    ^      As  t-o  what  you  say  of  Swedenborg's  "  authority  being  undermined"  in  con- 
^  ^  sequence  of  what  he  has  affirmed  respecting  the  Scriptures,  I  would  simply  re- 

^  1  mark,  that  as  he  neither  claims  for  himself,  nor  his  adherents  for  him,  any  other 
'  ^  authority  than  that  which  is  essentially  inherent  in  the  truths  that  he  proclaims, 
1\  so  that  authority  can  be  "  undermined"  by  nothing  else  than  a  demonstration 
\  :  "  •  that  those  asserted  truths  are  in  fact  fallacies  and  falsities.  This,  I  venture  to 
"  '  ■  say,  has  not  yet  been  done,  nor  do  I  see  any  immediate  prospect  of  its  being 
done. 

IX.  The  Corruiition  and  Desolation  of  the  Old  Church  and  the  Purity  ami  Perfection', 
of  the  New. — "  Swedenborg  maintains  that,  unless  the  New  Jerusalem  Church  had^ 
been  established,  no  flesh  could  have  been  saved  ;  that  the  Protestant  Church  as 
.  well  as  the  Catholic,  was  universally  corrupt,  and  destitute  of  the  faith  and 
charity  which  are  essential  to  salvation.    He  says,  so  long  as  the  dragon  and 
his  crew  continue  in  the  world  of  spirits,  no  divine  truth,  united  to  divine  good, 
can  pass  through  to  the  men  of  the  earth  without  being  perverced  or  destroyed. 
And  by  the  dragon,  he  says,  are  meant  those  who  are  in  the  faith  of  the  present 
S   "  church.    According  to  his  teaching,  all  the  best  men  of  the  Reformed  Church,  the 
Luthers,the  Melanchthons,  the  Calvins, — all  that  suffered  martyrdom  for  their 
attachment  to  Christ  in  different  countries, — all  the  Leightons,  and  Baxters,  and  ^ 
Scotts,  and  Wilberforces,  and  Howards,  and  Martyns  of  Great  Britain, — all  the 
Hookers,  and  Mathers,  the  Edwardses  and  Brainerds  and  Paysons  of  America, 
belonging  to  the  dragon  and  his  crew.    And  he  often  expresses  it  as  his  judg-  *^ 
ment,  that  none,  except  those  who  constitute  the  New  Church,  have  any  knowl- 
edge of  the  true  spiritual  sense  of  the  word  of  God,  or  any  title  to  the  blessings  " 
of  the  gospel.    All  except  the  few  who  belong  to  the  Swedenborgian  church,  ' 
are  in  darkness.    The  disciples  of  Swedenborg  are  in  the  truths  of  faith  which  ■ 
are  from  the  goods  of  charity ;  but  the  rest  are  in  falses,  because  in  the  use  of 
their  free  will,  they  have  opened  tlicir  interiors  to  the  influx  of  evil  spirits." — p. 
130. 

There  is  in  all  this  a  strange  mixture  of  truth  and  error,  by  which  the  reader  ^ 
is  sadly  mystified  and  misled.    That  there  was  a  necessity  for  the  establishment  f5! 
of  the  New  Jerusalem  Church  is  indeed  affirmed  by  Swedenborg,  because  God  * 
had  expressly  announced  it  in  Isaiah  and  the  Apocalypse,  and  his  counsel  must 
stand  of  course.    The  fact  of  the  ushering  in  of  such  a  dispensation  at  some  time  ^ 
you  cannot,  as  a  believer  in  Revelation,  question.   But  you  may  be  less  ready  to 
admit  the  identity  of  the  New  Jerusalem  of  John  with  that  of  Swedenborg,  and  » 
on  this  head  I  cannot  enter  into  a  full  discussion  till  I  learn  that  you  have  satis- 
factorily acquainted  yourself  with  the  fundamental  grounds  on  which  he  affirms 
this  identity,  and  are  prepared  to  give  your  reasons,  as  an  interpreter  of  Scrip- 
ture, for  denying  it.    He  has  given  the  most  abundaiU  reasons  for  his  assertion, 
and  among  them  is  undoubtedly  the  alleged  fact,  that  at  the  period  when  this 
dispensation  commenced  (about  the  middle  of  the  last  century),  the  pre-exist- 
ing Christian  church,  both  Catholic  and  Protestant  had  lapsed  into  a  deep  and 
wide-spread  degeneracy  in  consequence  of  the  prevalent  tenets  of  a  Trinity  of 
Persons  in  the  Godhead — of  an  Atonement  eflected  by  a  vijanovs  substitution  of 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


the  innocent  for  the  guilty — and  by  the  separation  of  Charity  and  Faith  in  the 
matter  of  Justification,  all  which  enter  into  the  very  vitals  of  Christian  Doctrine 
and  Liftf,  and  an  erroneous  view  of  which  must  necessarily  corrupt  and  devash 
tate  the  Church.  The  question  becomes,  as  you  will  perceive,  in  the  first 
instance,  a  simple  question  of  fact — have  these  doctrines  been  generally  taught 
under  the  aspect  in  which  I  have  presented  them,  and  then,  secondly;  are  they 
under  this  aspect  true If  not,  they  must  assuredly  be  pernicious,  and  I  do  not 
think  it  an  easy  matter  to  overstate  their  mischievous  and  ruinous  effects.  That 
they  are  not  true — that  they  are  pre-eminently  untrue— it  has  been  the  drift  of 
my  previous  reasoning  to  evince — with  what  success  I  leave  it  to  yourself  and 
others  to  judge. 

But  we  are  pressed  by  the  consequences.  If  the  doctrines  held  and  taught  by 
such  men  as  Leighton,  Baxter,  Scott,  Edwards,  Brainerd,  Payson,  and  others  of 
similar  stamp,  really  involved  grand  and  essential  errors,  do  we  not,  by  the  very 
force  of  the  allegation,  pronounce  sentence  upon  the  men,  and  cut  them  off  from 
all  hope  of  heaven  Do  we  not  consign  them  over  to  a  fatal  fellowship  with  "  the 
dragon  and  his  crew  .'"  No  other  inference  could  well  be  drawn  from  the  above 
presentation  of  the  subject,  and  yet  no  inference  could  be  more  unjust  and  inju- 
rious to  our  author  and  to  the  true  character  of  his  system.  Not  the  least  strik- 
ing among  its  wonderful  features  is  that  of  the  enlarged  and  catholic  Charity 
which  it  breathes  toward^  every  degree  of  real  good,  with  whatever  error  of 
understanding  it  is  found  in  conjunction.  The  fundamental  distinction  upon 
which  it  every  where  insists  between  the  love  or  life  'principle  and  the  mere  intel- 
lectual conviction  of  truth,  upon  the  former  of  which  and  not  upon  the  latter, 
salvation  is  suspended,  enables  him  to  recognize  the  heirs  of  eternal  life  in  mul- 
titudes of  those  whose  doctrinal  belief  is  widely  at  variance  with  that  which  he 
inculcates.  Indeed  I  have  often  been  deeply  and  admiringly  impressed  by  the 
tender  solicitude  he  evinces  so  to  discriminate  between  the  falsities  of  the  head 
and  the  heart  as  to  embrace  as  many  as  possible  within  the  range  of  the  Lord's 
saving  goodness.  Nothing  approaching  to  a  spirit  of  stern  and  gloomy  denun- 
ciatibn  is  to  be  found  in  his  writings.  It  is  only  when  falsities  are  intelligently 
confirmed  and  thence  wrought  into  the  texture  of  the  life,  that  he  despairs  of  a  ~. 
happy  result.  And  it  would  certainly  be  strange  if  one  who  assures  us  that  even^  ^ . 
the  well-disposed  heathen,  who  lives  up  to  the  light  of  his  convictions,  is  sared)  ^ 
as  far  as  his  goodness  and  truth  will  admit,  should  still  exclude  from  the  pros-^ 
pect  of  heaven  such  men  as  the  pious  worthies  whose  names  you  have  recited./)  \ 
That  their  faith,  was  at  fault  so  far  as  it  coincided  with  tlie  leading  popular  dog- 
mas upon  which  I  have  dwelt,  is  undoubtedly  true,  but  you  will  see  from  the 
extracts  which  follow  that  their  errors  might  still  consist  witii  a  sal vable- state, 
though  they  must  necessarily  detract  from  that  com]3leteness  and  symmetry  of 
character,  which  results  from  the  fair  and  full  conjunction  of  Goodness  and 
Truth. 

"  The  subject  here  treated  of  is  those  who  are  saved,  although  from  the  doc- 
trine of  their  religion  they  were  in  falsities  ;  for  all  are  saved  who  are  in  the  good 
of  life  according  to  the  dogmas  of  their  religion,  which  they  believed  to  be  truilis, 
although  they  were  not  truths,  for  what  is  false  is  not  imputed  to  any  one  who 
lives  well  according  to  the  dogmas  of  his  religion ;  for  the  good  of  life  according 
to  religion  contains  within  itself  the  affection  of  knowing  truths  which  such  per- 
sons also  learn  and  receive  when  they  come  into  another  life,  for  every  affection 


166 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


remains  with  man  after  death,  and  especially  the  affection  of  knowing  truths,  be- 
cause this  is  a  spiritual  affection,  and  every  man  when  he  becomes  a  spirit  is  his 
own  affection,  of  consequence,  the  truths  which  they  desire  they  then  imbibe, 
and  so  receive  them  deeply  in  their  hearts." — A.  E.  455. 

"  Inasmuch  as  they  lived  in  love  to  God  and  in  charity  towards  their  neighbor, 
the  falsities  of  their  religion  were  accepted  by  the  Lord  as  truths,  because  in- 
wardly in  their  falsities  there  was  the  good  of  love,  and  the  good  of  love  quali- 
fies all  truth,  and  in  such  case  qualifies  the  falsity  which  is  believed  by  such  to 
be  truth ;  the  good  also,  which  lies  concealed  within,  causes  such,  when  they 
come  into  the  other  life,  to  perceive  genuine  truths,  and  to  receive  them.  More- 
over there  are  truths  which  are  only  appearances  of  truth,  such  as  are  those  of 
the  literal  sense  of  the  Word,  which  are  also  accepted  by  the  Lord  as  genuine 
truths  when  there  is  in  them  the  good  of  love  to  the  Lord,  and  the  good  of  love 
towards  the  neighbor,  or  charity ;  in  the  other  life  also  the  good  which  is  in- 
wardly hid  with  them  dissipates  the  appearances,  and  makes  bare  the  spiritual 
or  genuine  truths." — A.  E.  625. 

"  They  within  the  Church  are  in  falses  and  at  the  same  time  in  good,  who  are 
in  heresies  and  in  the  life  of  good,  and  all  out  of  the  Church  [are  in  falses  and  at 
the  same  time  in  good]  who  are  in  good ;  but  falses  with  these  do  not  damn, 
unless  they  be  such  falses  as  are  contrary  to  good,  and  destroy  the  very  life  of 
good ;  but  the  falses  which  are  not  contrary  to  good,  in  themselves  indee'd  are 
falses,  but  in  respect  to  the  good  of  life,  which  they  are  not  contrary  to,  they 
almost  put  off  the  quality  of  the  false,  which  is  effected  by  application  to  good  ; 
for  such  falses  can  be  applied  to  good,  and  be  applied  to  evil ;  if  they  are  ap- 
plied to  good,  they  become  mild,  but  if  to  evil,  they  become  hard  ;  for  falses  can 
equally  be  applied  to  good,  as  truths  to  evil,  for  truths  of  every  kind  by  applica- 
tions to  evil  are  falsified :  to  illustrate  this  by  an  example ;  it  is  said  that  faith 
alone  saves,  which  in  itself  is  false,  especially  with  the  evil,  who  thereby  ex- 
clude the  good  of  charity,  as  if  it  contributed  nothing  at  all  to  salvation;  but  this 
false  grows  mild  with  those  who  are  in  the  good  of  life,  for  they  apply  it  to  good, 
saying  that  faith  alone  saves,  but  that  is  not  faith  unless  together  with  its  fruit, 
consequently  unless  where  good  is;  so  in  other  cases." — A.  C.  8311. 

"  The  fifth  cause  that  they  who  in  doctrine  and  life  confirm  with  themselves 
that  faith  produces  good  works  as  a  tree  does  fruit,  do  not  shut  heaven  against 
themselves,  is,  because  they  do  not  falsify  the  Word,  like  those  who  believe  in 
justification  and  salvation  by  faith  without  good  works ;  for  they  who  believe  in 
faith  as  justifying  without  good  works,  falsify  all  those  parts  of  the  Word  where 
love,  charity,  goods,  works,  deeds,  working  and  doing,  are  mentioned  and  com- 
manded, and  this  even  to  the  destruction  of  divine  truth  in  the  heavens,  under- 
standing by  those  expressions  either  faith,  or  the  moral  and  civil  goods  of  the 
world,  or  that  they  are  said  only  for  the  vulgar,  on  account  of  the  simplicity  of 
their  faith;  tiuis  destroying  divine  truth  itself  by  argumentations  drawn  from  the 
impotency  of  man  to  fulfil  the  law,  from  the  nature  of  the  good  which  is  done 
by  man,  as  not  being  good,  and  the  merit  which  is  inherent  in  such  good:  but 
they  who  in  simplicity  adjoin  good  works  to  faith,  do  not  falsify  those  parts 
of  the  Word,  and  hence  do  not  remove  faith  from  love  to*God,  and  thereby  admit 
the  divine  operation  in  everything  which  man  is  to  do,  as  well  as  in  everything 
which  he  is  to  believe  for  they  think  and  say  that  good  works  are  to  be  done 
as  from  man,  inasmuch  as  he  v/lio  docs  not  act  and  believe  as  of  himself, 
believes  and  does  nothing,  and  can  have  no  religion  ;  but  still,  inasmuch  as  they 
arc  not  in  genuine  truths,  though  they  do  not  indeed  shut  heaven  against  them- 
selves, they  cannot  advance  further  than  to  the  threshold  of  heaven:  howbeit  to 
such  of  them  as  have  loved  truths  for  the  sake  of  triuhs,  heaven  is  opened  when 
the  divine  order  is  restored  with  them,  which  is  when  charity  and  its  good  is  in 
the  first  place,  and  faith  and  its  truth  in  the  second,  for  they  are  then  like  those 
who  go  on  in  a  straight  way  with  the  face  looking  forward,  whereas  before  they 
were  like  those  who  go  with  the  face  looking  backward." — A.  E.  798. 

The  section  of  the  "  Apocalypse  Explained,"  from  which  the  last  of  the  above 
extracts  is  taken,  contains  an  extended  train  of  admirable  discriminations  on 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


187 


this  head  going  to  show  under  what  circumstances  falsifications  may  be  made 
of  the  truths  of  the  Word  which  still  do  not  proceed  to  the  extreme  of  closing 
heaven  against  their  authors.  So  also  in  the  following  list  of  references  to  the 
"  Arcana,"  by  Swedeiiborg  himself,  you  will  see  that  he  has  given  large  consider- 
ation to  the  subject. 

"  That  there  are  falsities  of  religion  which  agree  with  good,  and  falsities  which 
disagree,  n.  9259  ;  that  falsities  of  religion,  if  they  do  not  disagree  with  good,  do 
not  produce  evil,  except  with  those  who  are  in  evil,  n.  8318  ;  that  falsities  of  reli- 
gion arc  not  imputed  to  those  who  are  in  good,  but  to  tliose  who  are  in  evil,  n. 
8051,  8149  ;  that  truths  not  genuine,  and  also  falsities  may  be  consociated  with 
genuine  truths  with  those  who  are  in  good,  but  not  with  those  who  are  in  evil, 
n.  3470,  3471,  4551,  4552,  7344,  8149,  9298  ;  that  falsities  and  truths  are  consoci- 
ated by  appearances  from  the  literal  sense  of  the  Word,  n.  7344 ;  that  falsities 
are  verified  and  softened  by  good,  because  they  are  applied  and  made  condu- 
cive to  good,  and  to  the  removal  of  evil,  n.  8149;  that  the  falsities  of  religion 
with  those  who  are  in  good,  are  received  by  the  Lord  as  truths,  n.  4736,  8149; 
that  the  good  whose  quality  is  from  a  false  principle  of  religion,  is  accepted  by 
the  Lord,  if  tliere  be  ignorance,  and  if  there  be  in  it  innocence  and  a  good  end, 
ri.  78S7  ;  that  the  truths  which  are  with  man  are  appearances  of  truth  and  good, 
tinctured  with  fallacies,  but  that  the  Lord  nevertheless  adapts  them  to  genuine 
truths  with  the  man  who  lives  in  good,  n.  2053  ;  that  falsities  in  which  there  is 
good  exist  witli  those  who  are  out  of  the  church  and  thence  in  ignorance  of  the 
truth,  also  with  those  within  the  church  where  there  are  falsities  of  doctrine,  n. 
2589-2604,  2861,  2863,  3263,  3778,  4189,  4190,  4197,  G700,  9256." 

And  now,  in  view  of  the  above  citations,  I  must  be  allowed  to  ask  what  pos- 
sible ground  you  could  have  had  for  conveying  to  your  readers  the  impression 
they  will  naturally  receive  from  your  language,  that  "  he  often  expresses  it  as 
his  judgment,  that  none  except  those  who  constitute  the  New  Church  have  any 
knowledge  of  the  true  spiritual  sense  of  the  word  of  God,  or  any  title  to  the  bless- 
ings of  the  gospel  ?"  Do  these  extracts  sound  forth  a  sentence  of  excommuni- 
cation from  the  true  Church  and  of  exclusion  from  heaven  against  all  who  have 
not  given  in  a  formal  adhesion  to  the  doctrines  lam  advocating?  Do  the  fol- 
lowing paragraphs  sound  like  it  ? 

i  "  The  doctrine  of  charity,  which  is  the  doctrine  of  life,  was  the  essential  doc- 
^^rine  in  the  ancient  Churches ;  and  that  doctrine  conjoined  all  Churches,  and 
thereby  formed  one  Church  out  of  many.  For  they  acknowledged  all  those 
to  be  members  of  the  Church,  who  lived  in  the  good  of  charity,  and  called 
them  brothers,  however  they  might  differ  in  truths,  which  at  this  day  are 
called  matters  of  faith.  In  these  they  instructed  one  another,  which  was 
anionsst  their  works  of  charity;  nor  were  they  angry  if  any  one  did  not  accede 
to  another's  opinion,  kno'ving  that  every  one  receives  truth  in  such  proportion 
as  he  is  in  good." — H.D.N.  J.  9. 

"  There  are  two  tilings  which  conjoin  the  men  of  the  Church,  viz. ;  life  and 
doctrine;  when  life  conjoins,  doctrine  does  not  separate;  but  if  only  doctrine 
conjoins,  as  at  this  day  is  the  case  within  the  Church,  then  they  mutually  sepa- 
rate, and  make  as  many  Churches  as  there  are  doctrines  ;  when  yet  doctrine  is 
for  th-e  sake  of  life,  and  life  is  from  doctrine.  That  they  separate  themselves  if 
only  doctrine  conjoins,  is  evident  from  this,  that  he  who  is  of  one  doctrine,  con- 
demns another  [of  a  different  doctrine]  sometimes  to  hell ;  but  that  doctrine  doth 
not  separate,  if  life  conjoins,  is  evident  from  this,  that  he  who  is  in  goodness  of 
life  doth  not  condemn  another  who  is  of  another  opinion,  but  leaves  it  to  his 
faith  and  conscience,  and  extends  this  rule  even  to  those  who  are  out  of  the 
Church,  for  he  saith  in  his  heart  that  ignorance  cannot  condemn  any,  if  they  live 
in  innocence  and  mutual  love,  as  infants,  who  are  also  in  ignorance  when  they 
die."— ^.  C.  4468, 


168 


Aeply  to  dr.  woods. 


"  It  is  provided,  that  every  one  in  whatever  heresy  he  is  as  to  the  understand- 
ing, may  still  be  reformed  and  saved,  provided  he  shuns  evils  as  sins,  and  does 
not  confirm  heretical  falsities  with  himself;  for  by  shunning  evils  as  sins,  the 
will  is  reformed,  and  through  the  will  the  understanding,  which  then  first  comes 
out  of  darkness  into  light.  There  are  three  essentials  of  the  Church,  the  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  Divine  oHhe  Lord,  the  acknowledgment  of  the  sanctity  of 
the  Word,  and  the  life  which  is  called  charitj ;  according  to  the  life,  which  is 
charity,  every  man  has  faith from'the  Word  is  the  knowledge  of  what  life  must 
be;  and  from  the  Lord  is  reformation  and  salvation.  If  these  three  had  been  as 
the  essentials  of  the  Church,  intellectual  dissensions  would  not  have  divided, 
but  only  varied  it,  as  the  light  varies  the  colors  in  beautiful  objects,  and  as  vari- 
ous diadems  make  the  beauty  in  a  kmg's  crown." — D.  P.  259. 

I  beg  that  neither  yon  nor  any  one  else  will  infer  from  this,  that  Swedenborg 
represents  the  trutk  of  doctrine  as  a  matter  of  little  or  no  importance.  He  is  as 
far  from  this  as  possible.  But  he  is,  as  he  designs  to  be,  very  explicit  in  his 
teaching  that  doctrinal  belief  is  no  infallible  test  of  moral  character,  and  that  as 
evil  of  life  may  co-exist  with  the  acknowledgment  of  many  truths,  so  the  good 
of  life  may  be  found  in  conjunction  with  many  falsities  of  doctrine. 

"  All  except  the  few  who  belong  to  the  Swedenborgian  church  are  in  dark- 
ness. The  disciples  of  Swedenborg  are  in  the  truths  of  faith  which  are  from  the 
goods  of  charity;  but  the  rest  are  in  falses."  Swedenborg  knows  no  disciples, 
in  the  sense  in  which  your  language  would  naturally  be  understood.  The  re- 
ceivers of  Swedenborg's  doctrines  know  no  master  but  the  Lord  himself.  Would 
you  be  willingly  termed  a  disciple  of  Paul,  simply  because  you  regarded  Paul  as 
an  illuminated  expounder  of  the  doctrines  of  Christ Would  you  consent  to  be 
called  a  disciple  of  Calvin,  however  you  might  look  up'On  him  as  a  well  instruct- 
ed scribe  in  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom Would  you  not  deem  it  as  implying 
a  derogation  in  some  degree  from  that  supreme  deference  which  you  would 
always  desire  to  pay  to  the  words  of  Him  who  has  said  "  Call  no  man  Father  r" 
We  respect,  and  honor,  and  reverence  Swedenborg  as  a  highly  favored  medium 
of  divine  communications  to  men ;  but  we  do  not  profess  to  be  his  disciples. 
The  very  sentiments  we  cherish  towards  him  forbid  the  thought  of  assuming 
in  regard  to  him  a  relation  which,  if  anything  could,  we  are  sure  would  inflict  a 
pang  of  pain  upon  his  beatified  spirit.  So  also  in  regard  to  what  you  say  of 
the  "  Swedenborgian  church."  We  knov^^  no  such  church.  We  have  again  and 
again  disclaimed  the  denomination  before  the  world,  and  though  we  can  scarcely 
hope  that  the  use  of  it  will  be  waved,  and  though  we  doubt  not  it  may  be  some- 
times employed  simply  by  way  of  characteristic  designation,  yet  we  would  fain 
have  the  world  distinctly  understand,  that  we  repudiate  every  term  and  title 
which  has  a  sectarian  aspect,  since  if  onr  doctrines  are  /rue  they  are  emphatically 
the  doctrines,  and  the  only  doctrines  which  the  Lord  acknowledges  as  constitut- 
ing, with  the  apjiropriate  life,  the  Church,  which  is  "  the  Bride,  the  Lamb's 
wife,"  and  this  is  the  Church  of  the  New  Jerusalem. 

I  am  sorry  to  be  compelled  to  recognize,  in  the  foregoing  paragraph  from  your 
work,  a  certain  ail  invidiam  air  and  tone  which  comes  somewhat  gratingly  over 
the  feelings  that  I  like  to  cherish  when  conversing  with  the  products  of  your 
pen.  It  is  not,  in  truth,  a  fair  representation  of  the  fact.  It  does  injustice  to  the 
tenor  of  his  teachings.  It  attributes,  moreover,  a  claim  to  the  receivers  of  these 
doctrines  on  i/ie  5corc  of  their  personal  character  which  they  do  not  venture  to  make 
for  themselves.    Tliey  have  a  strong,  I  may  say  an  undoubting,  intellectual  con- 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


169 


viction  that  the  doctrines  in  the  abstract  are  true ;  but  they  see,  by  the  same 
light,  that  the  demands  of  these  doctrines  on  the  life's  love  are  so  high  and  im- 
perative, that  it  is  only  with  a  trembling  confidence  that  they  presume  to  look 
within  for  the  evidence  of  their  power.  They  are  taught  the  fact  of  a  heaven- 
wide  difference  between  a  correct  knowledge  of  the  "  truths  of  faith"  and  a  living 
experience  of  the  "  goods  of  charity."  They  find  therefore  a  perpetual  ground  of 
humiliation  and  holy  fear  in  their  conscious  failures  to  reach  the  high  mark  of 
their  calling,  and  are,  as  a  body,  utter  strangers  to  any  such  language  of  assurance 
or  self-complacency  as  one  would  think  from  your  remarks  to  be  the  vernacular 
dialect  of  their  faith.  But  I  would  not  meet  such  insinuations  with  acerbity  of 
spirit.  I  would  simply  enter  a  meek  protest  against  the  view  you  have  pre- 
sented of  our  position  as  a  Church.  I  could  not  desire  to  excite  any  other  senti- 
ments than  those  which  will  spontaneously  spring  up  in  any  candid  and  ingen- 
uous mind  on  a  clear  perception  that  it  has  wronged  an  opponent.  Least  of 
all  could  I  think  of  doing  this  in  dealing  with  a  spirit  which  I  know  to  be,  in  its 
general  actings,  so  tender  of  truth — so  studious  of  justice — so  prompt  of  repar- 
ation— as  yours.  That  your  statements  on  this  head  compel  me  to  seek  for  them 
some  apology,  is  undoubtedly  true,  but  I  find  it  in  the  inward  conviction  that 
your  impressions  were  taken  up  from  a  partial  and  imperfect  survey  of  the 
genuine  character  of  the  system.  I  do  not  recognize  the  least  intention  to  pre- 
sent it  imder  a  distorted  aspect.  , 

X.  Purgatory. — "  The  doctrine  of  a  purgatory  is  found  in  the  writings  of  Swe-? 
denborg, — -not  exactly  in  the  Popish  form,  but  equally  contrary  to  the  common^ 
faith  of  the  Protestant  Churches.    He  teaches  that  men  are  as  really  in  a  state  of  > 
probation  after  death,  as  before ;  that  in  the  world  of  spirits  they  go  through  a 
course  of  discipline  more  particular  and  thorough,  than  in  the  present  state,  and 
that,  after  their  predominant  affection  has  been  clearly  manifested, — after  the  re- 
mains of  evil  have  been  abstracted  from  those  who  are  regenerated,  and  the 
seeming  good  from  the  rest,  which  requires  no  inconsiderable  length  of  time,  the 
former  pass  into  heaven,  the  others  into  hell.    This  doctrine  of  another  state  of 
trial  after  death  is,  we  think,  very  different  from  the  doctrine  taught  by  Christ 
and  the  Apostles,  so  that  if  Swedenborg  was  right,  they  were  mistaken," 

I  deem  it  expedient  here,  as  elsewhere,  whenever  possible,  to  array  Sweden- 
I  borg's  own  declarations  against  the  counter-statements  which  are  proposed  by 
his  opponents.  A  writer's  own  confession  of  faith,  when  clearly  and  unequi- 
vocally expressed,  is  to  be  taken  as  a  prima  facie  exponent  of  his  real  sentiments 
on  any  particular  point,  though  the  attempt  is  entirely  legitimate,  on  the  part  of 
an  opponent,  to  show  that  this  is  inconsistent  with  itself,  or  with  something 
else,  taught  by  himself  or  others,  that  is  beyond  the  reach  of  controversy.  I  am 
not  aware  that  Swedenborg's  writings  contain  anything  inconsistent  with  the 
following  statement. 

"  ^Yil^.i'^sp^^'^  to  purgatory,  I  can  aver,  that  it  is  a  pure  Babylonish  fiction,' 
invented  for  the  sake  of  gain,  and  that  no  such  place  does  or  can  exist.  Every 
man,  after  death,  first  comes  into  the  world  of  spirits,  which  is  in  the  middle 
between  heaven  and  hell,  and  is  prepared  there  either  for  heaven  or  hell,  every 
one  according  to  his  life  in  the  world  ;  and  in  that  world  no  one  is  tormented, 
but  the  wicked  then  first  come  into  torment,  when  after  preparation,  they  go  to 
hell.  There  are  innumerable  societies  in  that  world,  and  enjoyments  in  them 
similar  to  those  upon  earth,  by  reason  that  they  who  are  there  are  conjoined 


170 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


with  men  iipon  earth,  who  are  hkewise  in  the  midst  between  heaven  and  hell. 
The  externals  of  such  are  successively  put  oft",  whereby  their  internals  are  laid 
open,  till  at  length  the  ruling  love,  which  is  the  life's  love,  and  the  inmost,  and 
which  governs  the  externals,  discovers  itself;  when  this  is  revealed,  then  the 
true  quality  of  the  man  appears,  and  according  to  the  quality  of  that  love,  he  is 
sent  forth  from  the  world  of  spirits  to  his  own  place,  if  good,  into  heaven,  and  if 
bad,  into  hell.  That  this  is  the  case,  it  has  been  given  me  to  know  of  a  certainty, 
because  it  has  been  granted  me  by  the  Lord  to  be  with  those  who  are  in  that 
world,  and  to  see  everything,  and  thus  to  relafe  all  from  actual  experience,  and 
this  now  for  the  space  of  twenty  years.  Wherefore  I  can  assert  that  purgatory 
is  a  fiction,  which  may  be  called  diabolical  from  its  having  been  invented  for  the 
sake  of  gain,  and  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  uower  over  souls,  even  after  death." 
~A.  R.  784. 

Here  we  see  that  he  expressly  denies  the  Popish  doctrine  of  Purgatory,  and 
yet  you  assert  that  the  doctrine  of  a  Purgatory  is  found  in  his  writings,  and  you 
seem  to  rest  the  charge  upon  his  alleged  teaching  that  "  men  are  as  really  in  a 
state  of  probation  after  death  as  before."  How  this  is  to  be  made  clearly  consis- 
tent with  what  immediately  follows,  that  men  go  through  a  course  of  discipline 
in  the  world  of  spirits  in  order  to  manifest  their  predominant  affection,  I  am  some- 
what at  a  loss  to  understand,  as  the  manifestation  of  such  an  affection  would  seem 
fairly  to  imply  its  previous  formation,  which  of  course  is  to  be  referred  to  the 
present  life.  But  I  have  still  greater  difficulty  in  reconciling  the  statement  with 
what  Swedenborg  says  in  the  following  paragraphs. 

"  The  life  of  marrcannot  be  changed  after  death  ;  it  remains  then  such  as  it 
had  been;  nor  can  the  life  of  hell  be  transcribed  into  the  life  of  heaven,  since 
they  are  opposite.  Hence  it  is  evident  that  they  who  come  into  hell,  remain 
there  to  eternity;  and  that  thev  who  come  into  heaven  remain  tliere  to  eternity." 
~A.  C.  10,749. 

"  The  man  who,  in  the  world,  has  begun  the  first  state  (reformation),  after  death 
can  be  introduced  into  the  other  (regeneration) ;  but  he  who  has  not  entered  into 
the  first  state  in  the  world,  cannot,  after  death,  be  introduced  into  the  other,  thus 
cannot  be  regenerated." — T.  C.  R.  571. 

"  Man  after  death  remains  to  eternity  such  as  he  is  as  to  his  will  or  reigning 
love. — It  was  said  by  the  angels  that  the  life  of  the  reigning  love  is  never  changed 
with  any  one  to  eternity,  since  every  one  is  his  own  reigning  love  ;  wherefore 
to  change  that  love  in  a  spirit  would  be  to  deprive  him  of  his  life,  or  to  annihi- 
late him."— ^  H.  480. 

Now  a  man's  "  reigning  love"  is  no  other  than  his  "  predominant  affection," 
and  this,  though  "  manifested"  in  the  other  hfe.is  never  changed.  How  then 
can  you  say  that  Swedenborg  teaches  that  "  men  are  as  really  in  a  state  of  pro- 
bation after  death,  as  before .'"  Does  he  not  in  fact,  teach  directly  the  reverse  ? 
There  is,  I  admit,  a  sense  of  the  term  "  probation,"  namely,  that  of  ti-ying  or  test- 
ing, for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  the  qualities  of  anything,  in  which  it  may  be 
said  that  every  spirit  comes  at  death  into  a  state  of  probation.,  for  he  enters  im- 
mediately upon  a  process  which  shall  prove  and  bring  out  his  interior  moral  char- 
acter -his  dominant  loves  and  delights — by  means  of  the  spiritual  associations, 
into  which  he  comes ;  but  this,  as  you  are  well  aware,  is  not  the  sense  which 
the  term  bears  in  ordinary  theological  usage.  It  there  has  the  import  of  an  in- 
cipient forming  or  determining  the  character  to  good  or  evil,  to  heaven  or  hell, 
according  to  the  direction  of  a  man's  volitions.  What  else  than  this  can  you 
mean  by  calling  it  "  the  doctrine  of  another  state  of  trial  after  death,"  and  speak- 


I 


1 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


171 


ing  of  it  as  something  "  very  different  from  the  doctrine  taught  by  Christ  and  the 
Apostles?"  Yet  how  is  it  different,  if  he,  as  well  as  they,  teaches  that  there  is 
no  change,  except  in  degrees  of  development,  in  a  man's  moral  character  after 
death  ?  As  you  seem  to  have  precluded  yourself  from  all  future  opportunity  of 
coni])lying  with  the  demands  of  justice  in  rectifying  erroneous  statements  in  re- 
gard to  Swedenborg's  doctrines,  you  will  allow  me,  in  the  present  instance,  to 
"  supply  your  lack  of  service"  in  this  respect. 

But  does  not  Swedenborg,  you  will  ask,  distinctly  teach,  in  contrariety  to  the 
whole  current  of  Protestant  creeds,  that  the  spirits  of  men  do  not,  after  death,  go 
immediately  to  heaven  or  hell,  but  enter  into  a  mixed  and  intermediate  state, 
where  they  are  sevevciWy  prepared  for  their  final  allotment  of  happiness  or  misery  ? 
He  does  ;  and  all  his  adherents  firmly  believe  it,  because  they  are  satisfied  that 
he  was  supernaturally  empowered  to  disclose  the  truth  on  this  head,  and  be- 
cause they  perceive  a  rational  ground  for  the  doctrine  in  tlie  elemental  prin- 
ciples of  their  being.  They  see  nothing  in  the  nature  of  the  change  wrought 
by  death  that  is  especially  calculated  of  itself  to  work  a  separation  of  the  min- 
gled qualities  of  good  and  evil,  truth  and  falsity,  which  go  to  forni  the  characters 
of  the  great  mass  of  mankind.  This  elimination,  however,  they  are  convinced 
must  take  place,  and  in  a  way  too  that  shall  not  suspend  for  a  moment  the  free 
and  voluntary  actingsof  the  soul.  Of  course  they  regard  the  process  as  gradual, 
and  they  not  only  accord  most  fully  with  the  statements  which  Swedenborg  has 
given  in  the  following  paragraph,  but  they  recognize  the  process  as  based  upon 
the  soundest  philosophy  of  our  moral  and  intellectual  constitution.* 

"  As  far  as  the  truths  which  are  of  the  understanding,  are  conjoined  to  the 
goods  which  are  of  the  will,  thus  as  far  as  a  man  wills  truths  and  thence  does 
them,  so  far  he  has  heaven  in  himself,  since  the  conjunction  of  good  and  truth 
is  heaven  :  but  as  far  as  the  falses  which  are  of  the  understanding  are  conjoined 
to  the  evils  which  are  of  the  will,  so  far  man  has  hell  in  himself,  because  the 
conjunction  of  what  is  false  and  evil  is  hell :  but  as  far  as  the  truths  which  are 
of  the  understanding  are  not  conjoined  to  the  goods  which  are  of  the  will,  so  far 
man  is  in  a  middle  state.  Almost  every  man  at  this  day  is  in  such  a  state,  that 
he  knows  truths,  and  from  science  and  also  from  understanding  thinks  them, 
and  either  does  much  of  them,  or  little  of  them,  or  nothing  of  them,  or  contrary 
to  them,  from  the  love  of  evil  and  thence  the  faith  of  what  is  false  ;  therefore,  in 
order  that  he  may  have  either  heaven  or  hell,  he  is  after  death  first  brought  into 
the  world  of  spirits,  and  there  a  conjunction  of  good  and  truth  is  made  with  those 
who  are  to  be  elevated  into  heaven,  and  a  conjunction  of  evil  and  the  false  with 
those  who  are  to  be  cast  into  liell.  For  it  is  not  permitted  to  any  one,  in  heaven 
nor  in  hell,  to  have  a  divided  mind,  that  is,  to  understand  one  thing  and  to  will 
another;  but  what  he  wills,  he  must  also  understand,  and  what  he  understands, 
he  must  also  will.  Wherefore  in  heaven  he  who  wills  good  must  understand 
truth,  and  in  hell  he  who  wills  evil  must  understand  what  is  false ;  therefore 
with  the  good  falses  are  there  removed,  and  truths  are  given  agreeable  and  con- 
formable to  their  good,  and  with  the  evil  truths  are  there  removed,  and  falses 
are  given  agreeable  and  conformable  to  their  evil.  From  these  things  it  is  evi- 
dent what  the  world  of  spirits  is." — H.  ^  H.  425. 

I  add  to  this  no  comments  of  my  own.  If  you  do  not  see  it  to  be  true  upon 
the  simple  perusal,  I  should  have  little  hope  of  your  being  convinced  by  the 
most  voluminous  array  of  reasoning.    If  you  demand  the  superadded  testimony 


*  .See  this  subject  discussed  at  considerable  length  in  the  third  and  fourth  Nos.  of  the 
"  Swedenborg  Library." 


^ 


172  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

o 

*    of  the  express  chapter  and  verse  of  Scripture  in  support  of  the  doctrine,  I  cannot 
;   give  it ;  nor  for  myself  do  I  feel  the  need  of  it.    If  a  professed  revelation  respect- 
ing the  conditions  of  the  human  spirit  in  another  life  appeals,  for  the  establish- 
ment of  its  credibility,  to  the  soundest  rational  inductions  of  my  own  mind,  and 
contains  nothing  contrary  to  what  I  read  in  the  general  tenor  of  the  Scriptures, 
why  should  I  refuse  it  assent  ?    Has  truth  upon  these  subjects  no  evidence  what-  ^ 
ever  except  what  is  derived  from  the  literal  affirmances  of  the  inspired  oracles  ? 
What  is  the  authority  for  a  thousand  pulpit  representations  of  the  particular 
forms  of  the  happiness  of  heaven  and  the  misery  of  hell  to  which  you  and  I  have 
often  listened  ?    They  may  not  be  always  correct — indeed  I  am  persuaded  they 
V       ^    are  generally  incorrect — but  they  are  obviously  made  on  the  assumption  of 
Vj      -  X  the  soundness  of  certain  general  principles,  which  are  deemed  sufficient  to  war- 
^  rant  the  recital  of  various  specific  details  growing  out  of  them.    May  we  not  re- 

^    J  r    cognize  as  much  certainty  in  the  fundamental  pruiciples  of  our  nature  as  laid 
i    &^^^down  by  Swedenborg,  and  upon  which  he  builds  all  the  details  of  his  disclo-  r 
i  V  «,  sures? 

*  K>    r  ^  .  » 

"**       y.'     XI.  All  Angels  and  Spirits ffom  the  Human  Race. — "  This  leads  me  to  say,  mor^~ 
particularly,  in  the  11th  place,  that  Swedenborg's  ideas  of  the  future  world,  and>  • 
\  character  and  state  of  its  inhabitants,  are  in  various  respects,  at  varianc^  - 

'       d  •  with  the  teachings  of  God's  word.    He  holds  that  all  the  angels  in  heaven  and? 
^       *"  '  all  the  devils  in  hell  are  from  the  human  race,  and  once  lived  in  this  world  as  we 
^    i-J    do  now.    Of  course  he  makes  the  history  of  paradise  a  m.ere  allegory,  as  there  ^ 

o       could  have  been  no  wicked  being  to  tempt  the  parents  of  the  human  race,  and 
i    j'.^^    no  such  beings  as  Jude  and  Peter  speak  of,  namely  "the  angels  who  kept  not 
{       their  first  estate,"  and  "the  angels  that  sinned."    When  Christ  says  that,  m  the 
^    future  world,  they  neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage,  but  are  as  the  angels  - 
_  of  God  in  heaven,  the  meaning  according  to  Swedenborg  must  be,  they  are 
angels.    But  this,  he  thinks,  does  not  prevent  their  marrying;  for  he  says  they 
are  men  and  women  after  death,  as  they  are  before,  that  they  have  conjugal  love,  - 
and  are  joined,  as  male  and  female,  in  marriage — though  it  is  all  spiritual." 
*.|  ^  0\  As  you  do  not  intimate  in  what  respects  you  regard  Swedenborg's  ideas  of  the 
''  future  world,  and  the  character  and  state  of  its  inhabitants,  to  be  at  variance 
.  with  the  teachings  of  the  word  of  God,  except  it  be  in  respect  to  the  true  nature 
of  angels  and  devils,  I  presume  I  am  at  liberty  to  consider  this  as  the  point 
-]  which  you  had  especially  in  your  eye  in  making  the  assertion.    Upon  this  I 
have  first  to  correct  an  error  in  your  statements,  and,  secondly,  to  consider  how 
far  the  alleged  error  in  Swedenborg's  statements  is  an  error.    "  He  holds  that  all 
the  angels  in  heaven  and  all  the  devils  in  hell,  are  from  the  human  race,  andonce 
{^.^^i'^edin  this  world,  z.s  we  do  now."    The  clause  in  Italics  is  entirely  a  mistake, 
I*  ^    -i  and  one  of  so  gross  a  nature  that  I  am  not  a  little  at  a  loss  to  conceive  how  it 
V  .  '  b  could  have  originated.    I  do  not  well  understand  how  a  writer  could  have  ac- 
'  '  ■ '     quired  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  system  to  feel  authorized  to  make  any  denial 
■"►^  "  on  this  subject,  and  should  yet  have  failed  so  utterly  to  represent  the  fact  as  it 

a..,^'  is.  Swedenborg  indeed  informs  us  that  all  angels  and  devils  are  from  the  hu- 
man race,  but  then  he  expressly  asserts,  over  and  over  again,  that  the  human 
race  is  not  confined  to  our  earth,  but  extends  throughout  all  the  habitable  earths 
in  the  universe  ;  and,  what  is  singular  enough,  you  have  yourself,  in  a  previous 

N  ^      '-  '  ■  <  t  I  ,  -  '  '    '  .  ,  "S  «^  '  .  .  vv  u  .  '   .  •  «  1 1* '  V 1.  « 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  ITS 

part  of  your  work,  made  copious  extracts  from  the  little  volume  entitled  "  Earths  ,  ^ 
in  the  Universe,"  in  which  you  speak  of  his  descriptions  "  of  the  men  and  women      '-  ^J^ 
who  live  there,  the  form  of  their  faces,  their  clothing,"  &c.    You  must  have      ^  * 
known,  moreover,  that  he  distinctly  affirms  that  he  gained  his  information  res- 
pecting these  various  worlds  and  their  inhabitants  from  the  spirits  that  once  , 
dwelt  in  them,  with  whom  his  spirit  had  intercourse.    All  these  spirits  be-  ^  '  '  • 
come  angels  or  demons  in  the  spiritual  world.    Can  1  then  but  wonder  ex- 
ceedingly that  you  should  here  represent  him  as  holding,  that  all  these  beings, 
"  once  lived  in  this  world,  as  we  do  now !"    You  can  easily  imagine  how  greatly 
my  ingenuity  is  taxed  to  frame  an  adequate  solution  of  the  problem  involved 
in  your  statement  on  this  head. 

As  to  the  objection  that  he  is  compelled  to  "make  the  history  of  Paradise  a 
mere  allegory,  as  there  could  have  been  no  wicked  being  to  tempt  the  parents 
of  the  human  race,"  methinks  this  does  not  come  with  the  very  best  grace  from 
one  who  insists  so  strenuously  upon  the  rigor  of  literal  interpretation,  for  the 
letter  of  the  narrative  speaks  only  of  a  bona  fide  serpent  as  the  tempter,  and  says 
:;^not  a  word  of  any  spirit  good  or  evil  as  having  anything  to  do  in  the  transaction. 
You  must  either,  therefore,  suppose  the  word  serpent  to  denote  an  evil  spirit,  while 
no  literal  serpent  was  present,  or  you  must  hold  that  such  a  spirit  employed      "  J 
an  actual  serpent  as  an  instrument  and  miraculously  spake  through  him,  which,  ^ 
though  I  once  believed  it  to  be  the  true  solution,  I  now,  upon  the  ground  of     ^  ^ 
clearer  views,  reject  as  totally  inadequate  and  inapposite.    It  is  to  me  altogether   ••,  ^ 
incredible  that  a  serpent  should  have  uttered  articulate  sounds  under  the  prompt-  ^  ^  t 
ings  of  an  intelligent  agent,  and  that  the  woman  should  have  been  deceived  by  >*  ^  ^ 
the  machinations  of  a  being  of  so  much  power,  but  of  whose  existence  she  had     p  ^ 
received  not  the  slightest  intimation.    If  it  be  replied  that  the  whole  matter  is  tO' .~  -  o  t 
be  resolved  simply  into  the  power  of  the  Most  High,  I  can  only  say  that  Omnipo- 
tence alone  can  never  solve  the  problems  which  involve  the  other  Divine  per- .  y 
fections,  or  silence  the  voice  of  our  cool  and  reverential  reason.    Still  I  deem  it     5  *■ 
probable  that  you  have  no  difficulty  in  receiving  the  solution,  although  it  is  cer- 
tainly advancing  beyond  the  strictness  of  the  letter  into  the  region  of  allegory  to 
understand  by  serpent  anything  but  a  serpent. 

As  to  what  is  said  by  Jude  and  Peter  of  "  the  angels  who  kept  not  their  first 
estate,"  and  "  the  angels  that  sinned,"  I  am  prepared  to  show,  upon  the  strictest 
principles  of  exegesis,  that  these  passages  have  no  reference  to  an  event  that 
transpired  in  heaven,  and  answering  to  what  is  termed  "  the  fall  of  angels,"  but 
that  it  relates  entirely  to  the  apostacy  of  the  antediluvians.  I  reserve  the  dis-  ■ 
cussion  however  to  another  contemplated  work. 

You  will  not,  I  trust,  understand  me  as  affirming  that  Swedenborg  adhereat; 
to  the  literal  sense  of  the  Mosaic  narrative  of  the  fall.    Far  from  it.    He  makes 
the  serpent  to  be  merely  a  symbol 'Sf  the  sensual  principle  in  man,  which  is 
continually  tending  to  seduce  his  higher  nature  to  a  compliance  with  its  dictates, )  4 
and  teaches  that  it  was  in  this  way  that  the  fall  was  effected,  just  as  every  man  j  f 
falls  at  tlie  present  day.    If  there  were  diabolical  influxes  operating  upon  the )    ^  r 
sensual  lusts  at  that  time,  which  he  does  not  expressly  affirm,  there  were  no 
doubt  evil  spirits  in  existence  from  some  part  of  the  universe,  to  act  the  part^  |^^^ 
which  they  ordinarily  do  in  tempting  man  to  sin. 


Bat  the  head  of  this  heresy  is  no  doubt  in  the  position,  that  all  angels  and 


174  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS 

spirits  are  from  the  human  race,  of  our  own  or  some  other  earth.  As  I  propose, 
if  life  and  health  are  spared,  to  treat  this  subject  at  length  in  a  future  publica' !>)n, 
I  shall  at  present  content  myself  with  a  brief  extract  from  "  Noble's  Appeal," 
which  will  lay  open  the  grounds  of  the  New  Church  doctrine  in  regard  to  the 
origination  of  angels  and  spirits.  "  What  is  man  The  Scriptures  assure  us,  that 
he  is  a  being  created  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  God.  This  is  the  proper  and 
intrinsic  nature  of  man,  however  he  may  have  departed  from  it :  and  is  it  possi- 
ble to  employ  any  other  language  that  will  accurately  define  the  intrinsic  nature 
of  an  angell  Is  an  angel  more  than  an  image  and  likeness  of  God  ?  This  would 
be  saying  that  angels  absolutely  are  Gods.  An  image  and  likeness  of  God  is  a 
being  who  receives  life,  love,  and  wisdom,  of  a  genuine  and  heavenly  nature, 
from  God  :  and  is  not  this  the  definition  both  of  a  man  and  of  an  angel .'  To  pos- 
sess life,  love,  and  wisdom,  in  himself,  is  the  prerogative  of  God  aloue  :  to  pos- 
sess life  derivatively,  accompanied  with  a  species  of  love  of  a  mereTy  natural 
kind,  and  with  instincts  supplying  the  place  of  Avisdom,  without  a  capacity  to 
•  recede  from  or  alter  them,  belongs  to  the  brute  creation  alone  :  and  to  possess 
life  derivatively,  accompanied  with  a  power  of  rising  from  natural  love  to  spir- 
itual, and  attaining  to  the  enjoyment  of  a  love  and  wisdom  truly  human,  imaging 
the  divine  love  and  wisdom  from  which  they  are  derived,  belongs  to  the  only 
other  conceivable  order  of  animated  creatures, — the  only  species  of  being  that 
can  exist  between  the  all-perfect,  the  infinitely  wise  and  good  God,  and  the  irra- 
tional ani^ial.  Such  a  being  is  man :  and  such  a  man,  when  he  has  passed  from 
this  natural  into  the  spiritual  sphere  of  existence,  is  an  angel." — p.  282. 

To  this  I  add  the  following  from  Swedenborg,  as  to  which  you  will  of  course 
act  your  pleasure  whether  to  regard  it  as  a  sober  and  veritable  relation,  or  as  the 
dreaming  or  raving  of  a  wild  hallucination.  I  suspect  that  to  many  of  my  read- 
ers it  will  have  a  certain  air  of  rational  probability  that  will  at  least  create  a  sus- 
picion that  it  is  not  very  far  from  the  truth. 

"  But  to  proceed  now  to  experience.  That  angels  are  human  forms  or  men, 
has  been  seen  by  me  a  thousand  times.  For  1  have  spoken  with  them  as  man 
with  man,  sometimes  with  one,  sometimes  with  several  in  company ;  nor  have 
I  seen  with  them  anything  different  from  man  as  to  form ;  and  I  have  repentedly 
wondered  that  they  were  such.  And  lest  it  should  be  said  that  it  was  a  fallacy, 
or  a  vision  of  phantasy,  it  has  been  given  me  to  see  them  in  full  wakefulness,  or 
when  I  was  in  every  sense  of  the  body,  and  in  a  state  of  clear  perception.  Fre- 
quently also  I  have  told  them,  that  men  in  the  Christian  world  are  in  such  blind 
in-norance  concerning  angels  and  spirits,  that  they  believe  them  to  be  minds 
without  form,  and  pure  thoughts,  concerning  which  they  have  no  other  idea, 
than  as  of  something  ethereal  in  which  there  is  something  vital ;  and  because 
they  thus  ascribe  to  them  nothing  of  man,  except  a  thinking  principle,  iliey 
believe  that  they  do  not  see,  because  they  have  no  eyes,  do  not  hear  because 
they  have  no  ears,  and  do  not  speak  because  they  have  not  a  mouth  and  tongue. 
To  these  things  the  angels  said,  that  they  knew  that  there  was  such  a  belie!  with 
many  in  the  world,  and  that  it  reigned  with  the  learned,  and  also,  what  ihey 
wondered  at,  with  the  priests.  They  also  said  the  cause  was,  that  the  learned 
who  were  the  leaders,  and  first  broached  such  an  idea  concerning  augcl.«  and 
spirits,  thought  from  the  sensuals  of  the  external  man  concerning  them  ;  and 
they  who  think  from  those,  and  not  from  interior  light,  and  from  the  general 
idea  which  is  implanted  in  every  one,  cannot  do  otherwise  than  construct  such 
fictions ;  since  the  sensuals  of  the  external  man  comprehend  nothing  else  than 
what  is  within  nature,  but  not  what  is  above  it,  thus  nothing  whatever  concern- 
ing the  spiritual  world.  From  these  leaders  as  guides  was  derived  the  falsity  of 
thought  concerning  the  angels  to  others,  who  thought  not  from  tliemselves  but 


II 


REPLY  TO  DR  WOODS, 


176 


fVomthem;  and  they  who  first  think  from  others,  and  make  those  things  mat- 
ters of  their  faitli,  and  afterwards  view  them  with  their  own  understundinp:,  can 
scarcely  recede  from  them;  wherefore  most  acquiesce  in  confirming  tliem. 
Moreover  they  said  that  the  simple  in  faith  and  heart  are  not  in  that  idea  con- 
cerning angels,  bnt  in  an  idea  concerning  them,  as  concerning  men  of  heaven, 
because  they  have  not  extinguished  by  erndition  what  w  as  implanted  in  them 
from  heaven,  nor  do  they  comprehend  anything  withont  a  form.  Hence  it  is, 
that  the  angels  in  temples,  whether  carved  or  painted,  are  not  represented  other- 
wise than  as  men.  Concerning  what  is  implanted  from  lieaven,  they  said,  that 
it  is  the  Divine  flowing  in  with  those  Avho  are  in  the  good  of  faitli  and  life. 

"From  all  my  experience,  which  now  is  of  many  years,  I  can  say  and  afiirm, 
ihat  angels  as  to  their  form  are  altogether  men  ;  that  they  have  faces,  eyes,  ears, 
a  breast,  arms,  hands,  feet;  that  they  see  and  hear  each  other,  and  converse 
together;  in  a  word,  that  nothing  at  all  is  wanting  to  them,  which  belongs  to 
man,  except  that  they  are  not  clothed  with  a  material  body.  1  liave  seen  them 
in  their  own  light,  which  exceeds  by  many  degrees  the  meridian  light  of  the 
woVld;  and  in  it  alt  things  of  their  face  were  seen  more  distinctly  and  clearly 
than  the  faces  of  the  men  of  th^  earth.  It  has  also  been  given  me  to  see  an 
angel  of  the  inmost  heaven  :  he  had  a  brighter  and  more  resplendent  face  than 
the  angels  of  the  lower  heavens  ;  1  surveyed  him,  and  he  had  a  human  form  in 
all  perfection. 

"  Good  spirits,  with  whom  I  have  spoken  also  upon  this  subject,  grieved  in 
heart  that  such  ignorance  concerning  the  state  of  heaven  and  concerning  spirits 
and  angels,  should  be  within  the  church  :  and  being  iudignaat,  they  saiii  that  I 
should  certainly  declare,  that  they  are  not  minds  without  form,  nor  ethereal 
spirits,  bnt  that  they  are  men  in  form  ;  and  that  they  see,  hear,  and  feel,  equally 
as  those  who  are  in  the  world." — H.  ^-  H.  74,  75,  77. 

XII.  T/ie  Marriage  Relation. — "  Swedenborg's  ideas  respecting  the  marriage  re-*; 
lation  rose  to  a  marvellous lieight.  He  says,  that  conjugal  love  belongs  to  an-  ; 
gels,  both  of  the  superior  and  the  inferior  heaven ;  that  it  is  the  head  of  all  oiher< 
loves;  that  it  is  the  fundamental  love  of  all  heavenly,  spiritual  and  natural  j 
loves;  that  into  this  love  are  gathered  all  joys  and  all  delights  from  first  to  last;) 
that  it  was  the  love  of  loves  with  those  who  formerly  lived  in  the  gold  and  silver^ 
and  copper  ages.  He  says,  that '  true  conjugial  love,  which  is  a  primary  char-/ 
acteristic  of  the  New  Jerusalem  Church,  is  more  celestial,  spiritual,  holy,  pure,  aridj 
clean,  than  any  other  love  in  angels  or  men.'" 

To  this  you  object  as  follows. 

"  To  such  a  statement  as  this  we  demur.  True  conjugal  love  is  indeed  a 
pure,  virtuous  and  honorable  affisction,  and  is  designed  by  our  Creator  lor  ex- 
ceedingly important  purposes  in  the  church,  and  in  civil  and  domestic  society. 
But  where  is  it  spoken  of  in  the  Scriptures,  as  the  head-spring  of  all  holy  affec- 
tions, and  as  more  celestial,  spiritual,  holy,  pure  and  clean,  than  any  other  af- 
fection in  heaven  or  earth  ?  The  first  and  great  commandment  is  not  that  which 
requires  love  between  husbands  and  wives,  but  that  which  requires  supreme  love 
to  God.  We  must  of  course  conclude,  that  this  affection  is  of  superior  excellence 
to  any  other.  And  the  second  command,  which  requires  love  to  our  neighbors, 
is  like  the  first;  and  this  love  must  be  considered  as  next  in  excellence  to  the 
love  of  God.  We  have  regarded  supreme  love  to  God,  and  equal  or  impartial 
love  to  man,  as  the  chief  of  the  Christian  graces.  And  if  we  change  our  opinion 
on  the  subject,  it  will  be  because  we  consider  Swedeiiborg  as  investeu  with 
higher  authority  than  Christ  and  the  Apostles,  and  as  commissioned  to  teach 
doctrines  widely  different  from  theirs."—^.  133. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  Swedenborg  gives  a  most  exalted  character  to  true 
conjugial  love,  and  equally  true  is  it  that  he  gives  the  most  ample  reasons  for  so 
doing.  The  subject  is  too  vast  to  admit  of  justice  being  done  to  it  in  the  limited 
compass  which  yet  remains  to  me,  and  I  shall  therefore  attempt  little  more 


176 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


than  a  brief  statement,  in  his  ovm  words,  of  the  grounds  on  which  he  ascribes 
such  a  pre-eminent  sanctity  to  the  marriage  relation.  Beginning  with  the  cita- 
tion of  numerous  passages  in  which  the  Lord  is  represented  as  the  Husband 
and  Bridegroom  of  his  Spouse,  the  Church,  he  goes  on ; 

"  The  reason  why  conjugial  love  considered  in  its  essence  is  the  foundation 
love  of  all  the  loves  of  heaven  and  the  church,  is,  because  it  originates  in  the 
marriage  of  good  and  truth,  and  from  this  marriage  proceed  all  the  loves  which 
constitute  heaven  aud  the  church  with  man :  the  good  of  this  marriage  consti- 
tutes love,  and  the  truth  thereof  constitutes  wisdom ;  and  when  love  accedes 
to  wisdom,  or  joins  itself  therewith,  then  love  becomes  love;  and  when  wis- 
dom in  its  turn  accedes  to  love,  and  joins  itself  therewith,  then  wisdom  becomes 
wisdom.  Love  truly  conjugial  is  the  conjunction  of  love  and  wisdom.  Two 
married  partners,  between  or  in  whom  this  love  subsists,  are  an  effigy  and  form 
of  it;  all  likewise  in  the  heavens,  where  faces  are  the  genuine  types  of  the  af- 
fections of  every  one's  love,  are  likenesses  of  it ;  for  it  pervades  them  in  the 
whole  aud  in  every  part,  as  was  shown  above.  Now  as  two  married  partners 
in  effigy  and  form  are  this  love,  it  follows  that  every  love  which  proceeds  from  the 
form  of  essential  love  itself,  is  a  resemblance  thereof;  wherefore  if  conjugial  love 
be  celestial  and  spiritual,  the  loves  proceeding  from  it  are  also  celestial  and  spir- 
itual. Conjugial  love  therefore  is  as  a  parent,  and  all  other  loves  are  as  the 
offspring.  The  same  is  evident  from  the  creation  of  man :  ui  that  he  was  created 
for  this  love,  and  from  his  iormation  afterwards  by  means  of  this  love.  The 
male  was  created  to  become  wisdom  grounded  in  the  love  of  growmg  wise ; 
aud  the  female  was  created  to  become  the  love  of  the  male  grounded  in  his 
wisdom,  and  consequently  was  formed  according  thereto ;  from  which  consider- 
ation it  is  manifest,  that  two  married  partners  are  the  very  forms  and  effigies  of 
•the  marriage  of  love  aud  wisdom,  or  of  good  and  truth.  Since  natural  loves 
flow  from  spiritual  loves,  and  spiritual  from  celestial,  therefore  it  is  said  that 
conjugial  love  is  the  foundation  love  of  all  celestial  and  spiritual  loves,  and  thence 
of  all  natural  loves.  Natural  loves  relate  to  the  loves  of  self  and  of  the  world; 
but  spiritual  loves  to  love  towards  the  neighbor :  and  celestial  loves  to  love  to 
the  Lord ;  aud  such  as  are  the  relations  of  the  loves,  it  is  evident  in  what  order 
they  follow  aud  have  place  in  man.  \Vhen  they  are  in  this  order,  then  the  nat- 
"ural  loves  live  from  the  spiritual,  and  the  spiritual  from  the  celestial,  and  all  in 
this  order  from  the  Lord,  in  whom  they  originate.  Into  this  love  are  collated  all 
joys  and  delights  from  first  to  last.  AH  delights  whatever,  of  which  man  has 
any  sensation,  are  delights  of  his  love;  the  love  manifesting  itself,  yea,  existing 
and  living  thereby.  That  the  delights  are  exalted  in  the  same  degree  that  the 
love  is  exalted,  and  also  in  the  same  degree  that  the  mcident  affections  touch  the 
ruling  love  more  nearly,  is  a  known  thing.  Now  as  conjugial  love  is  the  found- 
ation love  of  all  good  loves,  and  as  it  is  inscribed  on  all  the  parts  and  principles 
of  mail  even  the  most  particular,  as  was  shown  above,  it  follows  that  its  de- 
lights exceed  the  delights  of  all  other  loves,  and  also  that  it  gives  delight  to  the 
other  loves,  according  to  its  presence  and  conjunction  with  them ;  for  it  expands 
the  inmost  principles  of  the  mind,  and  at  the  same  time  the  inmost  principles  of 
the  body,  as  the  delicious  current  of  its  fountain  flows  through  and  opens  them. 

"  I  am  aware  that  few  will  acknowledge  that  all  joys  and  delights  from  first  to 
last  are  collated  into  conjugial  love;  because  love  truly  conjugial,  into  which 
they  are  collated,  is  at  this  day  so  rare,  that  its  quality  is  not  known,  and  scarcely 
its  existence ;  for  such  joys  and  delights  exist  only  in  genuine  conjugial  love ; 
and  as  this  is  so  rare  on  earth,  it  is  impossible  to  describe  its  super-eminent  felici- 
ties any  otherwise  than  from  the  mouth  of  angels,  because  they  are  principled 
ui  it.  It  has  been  declared  by  them,  that  the  mmost  delights  of  this  love,  which 
are  delights  of  the  soul,  into  which  the  conjugial  principle  of  love  and  wisdom, 
or  of  good  aud  truth  from  the  Lord,  first  flows,  are  imperceptible  and  thence  in- 
effable, because  they  are  the  delights  of  peace  and  inoocence  conjointly ;  but 
that  in  their  descent  they  become  more  and  more  perceptible  :  in  the  superior 
principles  of  the  mind  as'  beatitudes,  in  the  inferior  as  satisfactions,  in  the  breast 
as  delights  thence  derived ;  and  that  from  the  breast  they  diffuse  themselves 
into  every  part  of  the  body,  and  at  length  unite  themselves  iu  uUimates  and  be- 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


177 


come  the  delight  of  delights.  Moreover  the  angels  have  related  wonderful 
things  respecting  these  delights  ;  adding  further,  that  their  varieties  in  the  souls 
of  conjugial  pairs,  and  from  their  sonls  in  their  minds,  and  from  their  minds  in 
their  breasts,  are  infinite  and  also  eternal ;  and  that  they  are  exalted  according 
to  the  prevalence  of  wisdom  with  the  husband;  and  this,  because  they  live  to 
eternity  in  the  flower  of  their  age,  and  because  they  know  na -greater  blessedness, 
than  to  grow  wiser  and  wiser." — C.  L.  65-69. 

It  would  seem  from  this  that  there  can  be  no  real  conflict  between  the  demands 
of  this  love  and  of  that  supreme  love  to  God  and  the  neighbor  which  lies  at  the 
basis  of  a  true  heavenly  state.    The  character  which  is  the  subject  of  celestial! 
bliss  is  necessarily  made  up  of  the  union  of  goodness  and  truth,  or  love  and) 
wisdom,  and  this  union  is  the  very  essence  of  the  marriage  relation,  the  mani 
being  from  his  nature  the  impersonation  of  the  Wisdom  principle  and  the  wo-/  t 
man  of  the  Love  principle,  the  actual  conjunction  of  both  being  requisite  to  a\ 
perfect  image  of  Jehovah,  who  is  infinite  Wisdom  and  infinite  Love  in  indisso-  i 
luble  union.    Here,  then,  as  elsewhere,  the  doctrine  of  Swedenborg  can  only  be^  - 
denied  by  denying  the  fundamental  principle  on  which  it  rests.    And  I  would 
ask  whether  a  view  of  this  tender  relation,  exalting  it  to  a  dignity  and  sanctity 
which  had  never  before  been  conceived  of,  does  not  entitle  its  author  to  the 
reverence  and  esteem  of  all  those  who  devoutly  value  the  Divine  institutions 
Could  you  be  induced  to  give  a  candid  perusal  to  the  treatise  on  "  Conjugial 
Love,"  you  would  find,  !  think,  that  however  it  might  be  on  other  points,  yet 
on  this  your  objections  were  super-abundantly  answered. 

XIII.  Enjoi/ments  and  Pkasures  of  Heaven. — "  And  here  I  cannot  but  remark,  thatCi ; 
the  general  description  which  Swedenborg  gives  of  the  employments  and  plea-^i 
sures  of  heaven  falls  immeasurably  short  of  what  we  find  in  the  Scriptures.    He  " 
seems  to  attach  but  little  importance  to  the  Scriptural  idea,  that  the  spirits  of  just 
men  in  heaven  are  perfect  in  holiness ;  that  they  are  wiih  Christ,  and  see  him  face 
to  face,  and  are  like  him;  that  they  inherit  glory,  honor  and  immortality — an 
exceeding  and  eternal  weight  of  glory.    His  heaven,  as  he  commonly  describes 
it,  is  too  earthly.    Its  employments  and  pleasures  are,.for  the  most  part,  but  little 
above  those  which  are  found  among  Christians  here.    The  inhabitants  are  not 
united  in  one  happy  society,  having  the  same  holy  and  happy  affection.  Their 
opinions  are  different;  and  their  characters  and  tastes  uncongenial,  and  they  are 
led  to  form  innumerable  societies,  so  that  those  who  go  there  from  different  coun- 
tries, as  England,  Holland,  Germany,  &c.  and  those  who  had  been  under  different 
forms  of  religion,  as  Christians,  Mahometans,  Pagans,  &c.,  and  those  who  had 
been  engaged  in  different  occupations,  as  preachers,  philosophers,  mathemati- 
cians, &c.,  those  who  had  entertained  different  views  of  religion,  those  who  had 
been  wise  and  those  who  had  been  ignorant,  in  short,  every  variety  of  men  and 
women  may,  after  a  sufficient  number  of  trials,  find  their  proper  place,  and  live 
in  a  society  suited  to  their  dispositions  and  habits. — Now,  as  to  the  heaven  gen- 
erally described  by  Swedenborg,  I  would  seriously  ask,  what  is  it  compared 
with  the  blessed  state  briefly  described  in  the  prayer  of  Christ :  '  Father,  I  will 
that  they  whom  thou  hast  given  me  be  with  me  where  I  am,  that  they  may  behold  my 
glory.'   Cudworth,  and  Howe,  and  Baxter,  and  other  eminent  divines,  who  have 
formed  their  habit  of  thinlcing,  not  from  visions,  but  from  the  word  of  God,  hav 
12 


178 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


entertained  views  of  the  heavenly  state  unspealiably  more  pure,  and  spiritual 
and  exalted,  than  those  of  Swedenborg." 

The  grand  characteristic  of  Svvedenborg's  disclosures  on  this  head  is  their  con- 
gruity  with  the  constituent  principles  of  our  nature  as  composed  of  Affection 
which  has  relation  to  Good,  and  of  Understanding  which  has  relation  to  Truth. 
A  heaven  v/hich  does  not  recognize  these  principles  as  its  very  basis  in  the  soul 
of  man  must  be  the  merest  phantasy  that  can  be  imagined.  Such  undoubtedly 
is  every  idea  of  heaven  which  regards  it  mainly  as  a  place  of  assemblage — the 
locale  of  an  immense  society  gathered  out  of  all  nations,  kindreds,  and  tongues 
— and  promiscuously  convened  in  one  vast  redeemed  concourse.  Every  con- 
ception of  this  nature  we  are  taught  by  Swedenborg  to  regard  as  the  product  of 
mere  sensuous  thought  and  partaking  mfinitely  more  of  the  worldly  and  corpo- 
■  real  element  than  that  which  he  affords  us.  No  tiring  can  be  more  inapposite 
than  to  regard  heaven  in  the  light  of  a  place,  instead  of  that  of  a  state,  from  which 
all  ideas  of  place  and  space  are  necessarily  to  be  excluded.  There  is  of  course  a 
principle  of  union  m  the  common  love  which  reigns  in  all  the  good,  but  as  this 
principle  co-exists  \vith  truth  in  its  innumerable  varieties  of  intellectual  form,  it 
must  inevitably  prompt  to  conjunction  on  the  ground  of  mental  sympathies  jind 
predilections,  and  thus  give  rise  to  societies  of  countless  number,  all  which, 
being  governed  by  the  i^redominant  human  tendency,  must  arrange  themselves 
into  the  form  of  the  Grand  Man  of  heaven.  The  prevailing  idea  of  a  kind  of  gen- 
eral fusion  or  amalgamation,  to  be  effected  by  death,  of  all  the  diverse  elements 
of  character  in  those  who  have  been  born  again,  is  to  our  apprehension  one  of  the 
crudest  that  can  enter  the  human  mind.  Reflect  for  one  moment  whether  you  are 
not  acquainted  with  those  of  whose  piety  and  prospects  you  cannot  doubt,  while 
at  the  same  time  you  would  shrinlc  from  the  idea  of  a  perpetual  intimacy  with 
them  of  the  nearest  kind,  from  the  consciousness  that  in  a  thousand  particulars 
their  attainments,  tastes,  habits,  &c.  were  not  fully  congenial  with  your  own. 
You  would  not  feel  this  to  be  any  disparagement  to  them,  or  to  the  work  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  in  their  souls.  The  love  in  your  heart  must  answer  to  the  love  in 
theirs,  because  it  flows  from  the  same  source  and  tends  to  the  same  centre. 
But  this  fact  cannot  annul  the  intellectual  differences  by  which  you  are  severally 
distinguished,  nor  can  it  prevent  your  yielding  to  the  attraction  of  more  conge- 
nial spirits  as  your  abiding  associates.  The  reply  to  this  will  no  doubt  be,  that 
we  have  reason  to  iDelieve  that  the  mighty  leveller  death  will  sink  at  once  all 
these  inequalities  and  bring  all  the  good  into  the  most  perfect  harmony  with 
each  other,  without  reference  to  any  prior  barriers  to  union  which  may  have  exist- 
ed here.  But  what  reason  have  we  to  suppose  anything  of  the  kind  .'  Does  death 
destroy  a  man's  identity  ?  Will  you  not  enter  the  spirit-world  with  the  same 
mind  and  the  same  personal  character  which  you  bring  to  the  last  moment  of  life  ? 
Will  not  your  pious  servant  maid  do  the  same.'  What  solid  reason  then,  I  re- 
peat, have  you  for  believing  that  the  same  causes  which  govern  your  respect- 
ive associations  here  shall  not  operate  there  also.'  Will  the  translation,  in  either 
case,  necessarily  be  a  tramformation  ?  Will  she  be  instantaneously  lifted  up  to 
ihe  heights  of  your  theological  science,  or  will  your  eleration  be  depressed  that 
you  may  meet  on  a  common  plane  ?  The  real  man  of  the  other  life  is  the  actual 
mind  of  the  present  life,  and  how  violent  the  supposition  that  the  mere  transition 
rom  the  one  sphere  of  existence  to  the  other  is  to  effect  such  a  stupendou* 


! 

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179 


change  in  the  fixed  and  characteristic  attributes  of  the  individual  ?  Why  then 
should  not  the  constitutional  differences  of  various  jicoples  and  races  lay  a  foun- 
dation for  that  species  of  moral  grouping  which  Swedenborg  says  obtains  in  the 
heavens  ?  Why  should  not  the  pious  Hindoo,  the  Chinaman,  the  Sandwich 
Inlander,  if  in  the  good  of  Christian  life,  be  more  strongly  attracted  to  kindred 
souls  of  their  own  respective  nations,  than  to  others  whose  entire  course  and 
habits  of  thought  have  been  cast  in  a  different  mo|i!d  .'  The  infinitude  of  the 
Divine  Good  can  easily  flow  in  and  accommodate  itself  to  the  various  recipient 
forms  and  faculties  by  which  they  are  severally  distinguished,  and  this  is  of 
course  the  essence  of  heaven  under  any  supposition.  If  Swedenborg  did  not 
represent  this  as  the  fact,  we  miglit  well  question  the  truth  of  his  disclosures. 
But  I  beg  you  to  run  your  eye  over  the  following  items,  referring  to  the  "  Arcana," 
where  the  subjects  are  treated  at  length,  and  see  if  you  can  conceive  that  he 
lowers  or  lessens  our  rational  ideas  of  the  dignity,  purity,  blessedness,  or  glory  of 
the  heavenly  state. 

"  Experiences  to  show  that  men  have  so  general  an  idea  concerning  heaven 
and  heavenly  joy,  that  it  amounts  to  none,  n.  449.  That  the  least  is  the  greatest 
in  heaven,  because  the  happiest,  n.  462,  1419.  But  thatheaven  consists  in  being 
least,  not  greatest,  n.  452.  Some  suppose  that  they  arc  to  be  admitted  through 
a  door  into  heaven,  n.  453.  Some  that  it  consists  in  an  idle  life,  not  aware  that 
it  consists  in  active  life,  and  in  performing  works  of  charity,  as  the  angels  do,  n. 
456,  457.  That  the  universal  heaven  in  itself  hath  reference  only  to  the  Lord, 
n.  551.  That  all  and  singular  things  of  heaven,  and  heavenly  joys,  are  from  the 
Lord,  n.  551,552.  That  they  who  are  in  mutual  love  continually  advance  in 
heaven  towards  the  spring-time  of  their  youth,  n.  553.  That  the  evil  cannot  even 
endure  the  presence  of  an  angel,  n.  1271.  TJiat  the  evil  cannot  even  approach 
to  heaven,  n.  1S97.  Thatheaven  is  never  shut  to  eternity,  but  that  happiness  in- 
creases according  to  numbers,  n.  2130.  TIrat  the  glorification  of  the  Lord  in 
heaven  was  heard  and  seen,  n.  2133.  That  heaven  is  not  on  high,  but  within 
iTitm,  n.  8153.  That  man  is  heaven  and  the  church  in  the  least  form,  n.  9279i 
That  evils  and  falses  are  removed  from  those  who  are  elevated  into  heaven,  and 
goods  and  truths  from  those  who  are  cast  down  into  hell,  n.  9331.  That  divine 
truth  from  the  Lord  makes  heaven,  n.  9408.  That  in  the  other  life  all  things  are 
communicated,  are  received  or  rejected  according  to  loves,  n.  10,130.  That  the 
Lord  is  heaven  and  the  church,  thus  all  in  all  there,  because  he  dwells  there  iii 
his  own,  n.  10,125.  The  love  of  good  and  the  faith  of  truth,  the  life  of  heaven, 
n.  10,715.  That  they  who  receive  heaven  in  themselves  come  into  heaven,  n. 
10,717.  Thatthey  will  good  to  all  for  the  sake  of  good  and  truth,  n.  10,718. 
That  in  the  other  life  the  internal  is  laid  open,  Avhereby  it  is  evident  whether 
heaven  or  hell  be  in  it,  n.  10,270.  That  love  and  faith  have  in  them  heavenly 
joy,  n.  10,722.  That  in  heaven  there  is  a  communication  of  all  goods,  and  hence 
so  great  peace,  intelligence,  wisdom,  and  happiness,  n.  10,723.  That  they  who 
are  in  the  loves  of  self  and  of  the  world  do  not  apprehend  these  things,  and  that  in 
them  is  so  great  happiness,  n.  10,724.  That  the  heaven  of  the  Lord  is  immense 
for  myriads  of  earths,  n.  10,784. 

In  all  this  it  will  be  difficult,  I  think,  to  detect  an  air  of  extravagance,  or  to 
designate  any  particular  which  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, however  it  may  transcend  the  letter.  But  you  say,  "  What  is  all  this  com- 
pared with  the  blessed  state  described  in  the  prayer  of  Christ,  Father,  I  will 
that  they  whom  thou  hast  given  me  be  with  me,  where  I  am,  that  they  may  behold 
my  glory."  And  what  I  would  ask,  is  the  beholding  the  glory  of  Christ Is  it 
looking  upon  a  divine  splendor,  or  basking  in  the  beams  of  what  is  termed  the 
beatific  vision Is  it  not  an  intellectual  converse  with  the  high  themes  of 
heaven?  Is  it  not  a  spiritual  perception  of  the  truths  and  the  goods  flowing 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


tlirougfh  retlemption  from  the  Lord  to  the  souls  of  "just  men  made  perfect?" 
And  is  not  this  the  very  employment  which  Swedenborg  ascribes  to  the  hehs  of 
the  heavenly  kingdom  ?  How  then  are  his  representations  a  disparagement  of 
the  Scriptural  teachings  on  this  head  ?  If  you  do  not  wholly  doubt  their  com- 
petency to  bear  witness  in  the  case,  ask  any  of  his  adherents  whether  they  have 
found  his  statements  to  be  attended  with  such  effects  as  you  intimate  ?  Are 
they  conscious  of  the  least  weakening  of  the  power  qf  the  motives  to  a  holy  life 
drawn  from  the  views  of  heaven  which  Swedenborg  presents  ?  Be  assured  they 
will,  with  one  voice,  declare,  that  it  is  increased  an  hundred  fold.  The  vague 
generalities  of  their  former  belief  were  comparatively  inert  and  lifeless.  They 
have  now  a  heaven  set  before  them  which  is  the  mere  crowning  development 
of  the  heaven  that  has  been  implanted  within  them.  They  know  what  it  must 
be,  because  they  feel  what  it  is.  You  will  therefore  very  rightly  infer  that  I  am 
at  the  farthest  possible  remove  from  admitting  the  justice  of  your  strictures  on 
this  feature  of  our  system. 

^  XIV.  Tlie  Sufferings  and  Miseries  of  Hell. — "  There  is  the"  same  palpable  differ- 
ence between  his  ideas  of  hell  and  those  of  the  sacred  writers.  The  sufferings 
of  hell,  as  described  in  the  word  of  God,  are  suited  to  awaken  the  deepest  emo- 

"itions  of  fear  and  dread,  and  so  to  deter  men  from  wickedness.  Those  who  are 
doomed  to  that  wretched  place,  are  represented  as  under  the  wrath  of  God,  as  ban- 
ished from  his  presence,  as  in  the  blackntss  of  darkness,  as  cast  into  unquenchable  fire ,  where 
there  is  u-ecping,  ami  wailing,  and  gnashing  of  teeth.  The  most  dreadful  things  in 
creation  are  seized  upon  to  set  forth  the  miseries  of  the  infernal  abode.  But 
what  is  Swedenborg's  hell.'  Why,  it  is  a  great  work-house,  where  the  people 
have  tasks  assigned  them,  not  extremely  hard, — which  they  are  obliged  to  do 
in  order  to  get  food.  It  is  somewhat  like  our  State-Prison ;  though  in  some  re- 
spects less  dreadful  to  its  depraved  and  guilty  inmates." 

I  might  here  easily  and  properly  remand  the  course  of  discussion  back  to  the 
fundamental  question  of  Swedenborg's  illumination,  and  rest  the  truth  or  false- 
hood of  his  statements  on  this  head  upon  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  his  general 
claim.  If  he  actually  saw  the  verities  of  heaven  and  hell,  has  he  not  truly  des- 
cribed them .'  Can  you  possibly  reject  his  statements  without  first  disproving  his 
pretensions And  can  you  discard  the  improbable  in  his  revelations  without 
offering  some  more  adequate  solution  of  the  probable  than  has  yet  been  given  ? 
But  I  am  willing  to  wave  this  form  of  reply  and  to  attempt  to  sustain  the  truth 
of  his  disclosures  on  the  ground  of  their  own  intrinsic  character.    And  herg  we 

|are  not  to  forget  that  Swedenborg  lays  it  down  as  a  fundamental  principle,  that 
both  the  celestial  and  infernal  scenery,  which  appears  objectively  to  spirits,  is 
the  mirrored  representative  of  their  internal  states  as  to  affection  and  thought,  j 
The  scenery  is,  as  it  were,  the  visible  form  of  the  states,  and  the  state  of  the  in- 
fernals  is  a  state  constituted  by  the  character  of  their  ruling  loves.  These  are 
the  loves  of  self  and  of  the  world,  existing  in  the  intensest  degree  and  at  once 
including  every  wicked  and  baleful  passion  akin  to  them,  and  excluding  every 
good  and  heavenly  prompting  opposed  to  them.  Every  spirit  of  hell,  there- 
fore, is  a  complex  of  the  fiendish  dispositions  of  malice,  hatred,  anger,  envy, 
revenge,  cruelty,  lust,  desire  of  dominion,  and  goaded  on  by  a  continual  impulse 
to  act  out  these  horrid  tempers  by  inflicting  all  possible  misery  upon  others. 
Such  beingtheir dominant  loves,  their  thoughts  must  correspond  with  them,  and 


■%:^xe     ;t-^/t^'A^    ^ce^-vA-^v^-  Lo€i^LcA^ 


1 


I- 


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181 


as  thought  assumes  form  in  the  other  Hfc,  and  as  these  forms  become  realities 
from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  what  must  be  the  outward  bodyings  fortli  o(  these 
internal  states  but  a  com^iiication  of  just  such  hideous  and  revolting  scenery  as 
Swedenborg  has  described As  they  have  no  genuine  truth  in  consequence  of 
having  deprived  themselves  of  the  kindred  good,  they  have  no  true  wisdom, 
and  being  destitute  of  true  wisdom,  they  are  destitute  of  true  rationality,  or  in 
other  words  arc  virtually  insane,  though  still  able  to  exercise  an  infernal  subtlety 
and  cunning  in  compassing  their  pernicious  ends.  In  this  condition  they  must 
necessarily  be  in  the  indulgence  of  the  wildest  phantasies  and  imaginings,  and 
consequently  surrounded  by  mental  creations  of  to  us  the  most  loathsome  and 
terrific  description,  yet  in  many  of  which  they,  from  the  perverted  actings  of 
their  moral  nature,  experience  a  certain  kind  of  hellish  delight.  Hence,  as  their 
imaginings  are  turned  into  correspondent  realities,  their  tossings  upon  furious 
horses — their  wounding  by  venomous  serpents — their  rending  by  ravenous 
beasts — their  murdering  and  being  murdered  by  deadly  weapons — and  all  the 
sad  variety  of  tortures  to  which  they  are  subject  under  the  outbreak  of  their  evil 
passions ;  for  in  proportion  as  they  put  a  restraint  upon  their  infernal  impulses, 
the  severity  of  their  doom  is  mitigated,  while  at  the  same  time  no  radical  change 
in  their  nature  is  effected. 

If  such  then  be  indeed  the  real  internal  state  of  the  wicked  in  hell — if  the 
very  breathing  of  their  souls  is  toward  evil  and  destruction — shall  we  suppose 
them  to  be  left  without  check.'    Will  the  infinite  Love  and  Wisdom  leave  even| 
hell  itself  to  become  a  perfect  chaos  of  conflicting  elements — a  raging  volcano,'- 
of  infernal  fires     Do  not  our  best  conceptions  of  the  Divine  attributes  compel; 
the  belief  that  the  hells  shall  be  kept  in  some  kind  of  order  .'    May  not  the  com-\ 
passion  of  a  God  extend  even  to  their  wretched  inmates     May  he  not,  as  far  as) 
possible,  moderate  and  mitigate  the  extremities  to  which  their  evils  are  con-) 
stantly  prone  to  rush  ?    But  how  shall  this  be  done,  consistently  with  their  free^ 
agency,  except  by  means  of  moral  bonds,  such  as  fears,  threats,  and  punish- 
ments    And  even  suppose  they  are  so  far  overruled  as  to  be  made  subservient 
to  certain  kinds  o(  uses,  ought  this  to  derogate  in  our  esteem  from  the  perfections 
that  are  manifested  in  their  lot .'    Is  it  any  disparagement  to  our  criminal  codes 
in  this  world  that  the  inmates  of  our  State-Prisons  are  made  to  labor  in  various 
useful  arts  and  callings  as  a  part  of  their  penal  discipline  .'    And  do  we  think  it 
wrong  that  extra  punishments  should  be  visited  upon  them  for  extra  misde- 
meanors during  their  incarceration     I  should  almost  suppose  from  the  follow- 
ing passage  that  your  mind  shrank  from  the  idea  of  any  kind  of  alleviation,  from 
any  source,  of  the  utmost  intensity  of  anguish  among  these  heirs  of  perdition. 

"  Swedenborg  thinks,  that  the  Lord,  being  exceedingly  kind  and  compassionate, 
endeavors,  in  all  possible  ways,  to  gratify  tlie  inclinations  of  the  wicked  in  the 
other  world,  and  will  sometimes,  at  their  request,  admit  them  to  heaven  as  a 
matter  of  trial.  His  indignation  and  wrath,  i.  e.  his  iioly  displeasure,  against  sin, 
is  not,  accordmg  to  Swedenborg  an  objective  reality,  but  an  illusive  apprehension, 
a  phantasy  of  the  guilty  mind  of  man." — p.  136. 

It  is  to  me,  I  confess,  in  my  better  moods,  a  subject  of  rejoicing  to  think,  that 
the  Lord  is  "  so  exceedingly  kind  and  compassionate"  as  to  allow  such  a  trial  as 
you  speak  of  to  be  made  ;  for  the  effect  of  it  is  plainly  to  evince  that  the  Divine 
Mercy  is  conspicuous  in  the  hells,  inasmuch  as  if  it  were  the  design  to  make  the 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


wicked  as  miserable  as  possible,  they  would  be  violently  urged  into  heaven, 
which  would  be  to  them  a  far  severer  torture  than  they  experience  in  hell.  We 
see  then  in  this  a  demonstration  of  the  awful  wickedness  of  the  infernals  in  hav- 
ing acquired  a  character  which  renders  the  bliss  of  heaven  an  element  of  intol- 
erable misery  to  them,  and  on  the  other  hand  a  clear  proof  of  the  Divine  clemency 
in  having  provided  for  every  one  a  state  best  suited  to  his  internal  quality,  and 
therefore  more  congenial  to  his  tastes  and  wishes  than  any  other. 

But  you  say  that  according  to  Swedenborg,  "his  indignation  and  wrath,  i.  e. 
his  holy  displeasure  against  sin,  is  not  an  objective  reality,  but  an  illusive  appre- 
hension, a  phantasy  of  the  guilty  mind  of  man."  The  evident  implication  is, 
that  you  believe  in  a  real  indignation  and  ■wrath  in  the  mind  of  God  against 
sin  or  the  sinner,  however  the  idea  is  apparently  softened  down  by  the  some- 
what milder  appellation  of  a  "  holy  displeasure."  The  receivers  of  Swedenborg 
find  no  authority  for  ascribing  to  the  Deity  any  such  passion  as  absolute  anger  or 
displeasure,  while  at  the  same  time  they  clearly  perceive  and  expressly  affirm 
that  the  contrariety  between  the  evil  that  is  in  man  and  the  goodness  and  love 
that  is  in  God  has,  to  the  consciousness  of  the  offender,  the  same  positive  effect  as 
if  that  which  is  apparent  were  real.  But  I  have  already  presented  our  views  on 
this  point  with  sufficient  distinctness. 

"  Swedenborg  was  indeed  led,  by  his  longer  residence  in  the  hells,  to  entertain 
other  views,  and  to  represent  the  punishments  of  the  wicked  as  more  appalling 
and  disgusting,  than  the  labors  and  sufferings  of  the  great  work-houses  above- 
,mentioned  ;  a!thoug]i^diej2imishinents  arose  from  the  creations  of  their  own_dis- 
(tenipered  minds,  like  what  often  takes  place  in  delirium  or  insanity5'!Tle  says: 
'TTlII  who  are  in  the  hells,  appear  with  tTieirlace  backwards  from  tKe  Lord, — and 
l/with  the  feet  upwards  and  the  head  downwards.' " — p.  136. 

.  I  do  not  know  precisely  what  you  would  have  the  redder  understand  by  Swe- 
denborg's  "  longer  residence  in  the  hells."  I  have  not  learnt  from  his  o^vn  state- 
ments that  he  resided  there  at  all.  The  term  is  certainly  a  very  singular  one  to 
apply  to  that  spiritual  perception  and  insight,  by  which  he  was  made  acquainted 
with  the  condition  of  things  in  the  spiritual  world,  including  both  heaven  and 
hell.  I  can  scarcely  believe  that  you  intended  to  endorse  IVIr.  Emerson's  verdict, 
that  Swedenborg  had  a  morbid  propensity  to  be  continually  peering  into  infernal 
glooms  and  horrors,  for,  as  I  have  shown  in  my  reply  t(^  that  gentleman,  the 
whole  tenor  of  his  writings  is  directly  tlie  reverse.  Yet  you  speak  as  if  he 
had  taken  up  his  abode  in  those  doleful  regions,  and  by  a  long  sojourn  there  had 
made  himself  by  degrees  fully  acquainted  with  all  the  ckcumstances  of  the  lot 
of  their  inhabitants. 

Again  you  quote  him  as  saying : — "  All  wlio  are  hi  the  hells  appear  with  their 
face  backward  from  the  Lord, — and  with  the  feet  upwards  and  the  head  down- 
wards." These  indeed  are  his  words,  but  how  differently  does  the  whole  matter 
strike  the  reader  when  he  is  informed,  that  it  is  only  to  the  angels  of  heaven  that 
they  have  this  inverted  appearance,  whereas  in  their  own  eyes,  and  as  seen  by 
each  other,  they  seem  to  stand  normally  erect,  with  their  heads  upwards  and 
their  feet  downwards.  The  light  of  heaven  is  the  light  of  truth,  which  reveals 
things  as  they  are.  The  light  of  hell  is  a  mere  fatuuous  lumen  which  falsifies 
realities,  for  there  all  truth  is  perverted  and  all  order  inverted. 

In  this  connection  I  meet  with  the  following  paragraph : — 


I 


cc  i-fe-i^j  ( 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.] 


183 


"  According  to  Swedenborg,  these  various  punishments  of  hell- are p/tantetcs  or 
illusive  apprehensions,  created  by  the  disordered  fancy  of  the  sufferers,  like  the 
frantic  and  frightful  conceptions  of  maniacs.  Now  is  there  not  reason  to  think 
that  the  ideas  of  these  tilings,  which  arose  in  the  mind  of  Swedenborg,  were  also 
pliantasies,  the  creations  of  a  lively  and  fruitful  mind,  under  the  influence  of  a  very 
singular,  protracted,  and  profound  delirium, — still  resulting  in  a  great  measure, 
•  from  his  previous  speculations  on  the  subject  of  future  punishment.'" — p.  138. 

This  convenient  theory  of  "  previous  speculations"  has  met  us  several  times 
before,  and  I  very  much  doubt  whether  any  creation  of  Swedenborg's  mind  is 
more  fully  entitled  to  be  termed  a  phantasy  than  is  such  a  conceit  in  your  own. 
<■  But  to  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  reasoning  ; — because  Swedenborg  declares 
•  ^  that  a  great  portion  of  the  punishments  among  the  spirits  of  the  pit  originate 
in  pAanias!/,  you  would  therefore  have  us  beheve  that  his  representations  them- 
^  selves  come  into  the  same  category.    This  implies  at  any  rate  that  you  admit 
"  the  fact  of  such  phantasies,  and  consequently  admit  the  possibility  of  their  obtain- 
ing among  infernal  spirits,  for  in  granting  that  Swedenborg  may  have  been  im- 
^  pos,ed  upon  by  phantasies,  because  that  phantasies  reign  in  the  spiritual  world, 
"  you  of  course  concede  that  what  he  says  on  this  subject  may  be  true.    The  ques- 
^  tion  then  arises  as  to  the  probability  of  the  punishments  of  hell  originating,  in  great 
V  -  measure,  from  this  source.    Now  you  are  aware  that  the  use  of  the  term,  on 
t  Swedenborg's  principles,  does  not  imply  that  the  objects  of  phantasy,  thus  men- 

-  tally  projected,  are  not  real  to  the  percipients.    A  phantastic  hydra  to  a  lost  spirit 

-  is  in  effect  a  real  hydra,  because  it  is  really  seen  by  him,  and  its  bite  produces  a 
"  real  sensation  of  pain."*-  The  mental  things  of  the  other  life  are  to  spirits  real 

things,  and  if  they  suffer  at  all  from  anything  that  is  obleciiveho  them,  why 
s  should  it  not  be  from  this  cause  as  well  as  any  other .'    Is  there  not  therefore  an 
"  adequate  and  philosophical  ground  for  Swedenborg's  assertion  on  this  head,  and 
•  how  can  you  fairly  deduce  an  inference  of  delusioi^n  his  case  from  premises 
^  involving  a  positive  truth  .'    Is  the  enunciation  of  a  sound  and  rational  principle 
t  the  proof  of  an  unsound  and  phantastic  state  of  mind  in  him  who  makes  it? 

Besides,  if  he  were  the  mere  dupe  of  "  illusive  apprehensions"  in  these  state- 
,  ments,  they  were  no  doubt  injected  into  his  mind  by  these  very  spirits  whose 
•  ^  character  and  condition  he  is  setting  forth,  and  as  they  live,  move  and  breathe,  in 
an  element  of  falsities,  it  were  a  much  more  probable  supposition  that  if  they 
.  designed  to  play  upon  him  by  phantasies,  they  would  never  have  prompted  an 
■  ^  expose  of  their  state  so  marked  by  an  air  of  intrinsic  truth — so  v/ell  calculated 
to  stand  the  test  of  rigid  psychological  inquest.    If  they  continually  pour  forth 
^  falsities  on  every  other  subject,  why  not  on  this  also  ?    "  Let  every  one,"  says 
^  Swedenborg,  "  take  heed  to  himself  when  he  comes  into  the  other  life,  lest  he 
J"  be  illuded ;  for  evil  spirits  Itnow  how  to  present  various  illusions  before  those 
^  who  have  recently  come  from  the  world,  and  if  they  cannot  deceive,  still  they 
try,  by  those  illusions,  to  persuade  that  nothing  is  real,  but  that  all  things  are 
^  ideal,  even  those  which  are  in  heaven."   How  much  more  then  these  which  are 
^.  in  hell! 

Again,  you  object  to  that  feature  of  his  revelations  respecting  the  hells  which 
....  denies  the  actings  of  remorsf— the  pain  inflicted  by  a  guilty  conscience — in 
Xthe  bosom  of  mfernals.    And  this,  you  say,  is  very  remarkable.    He  labors 
^  abundantly  in  other  ways  to  teach  us,  that  man  in  the  next  world  will  be  man 
■  still,  man  altogether,  possessed  of  all  the  faculties  and  senses  and  affections,  Avhich 
he  has  here ;  and  yet  he  holds  that  the  sinners  in  hell  will  be  destitute  of  that 


184 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


which  is  such  a  constant  and  dreadful  accompaniment  of  guilt  in  the  present 
'world."    Now  it  is  in  fact  upon  this  very  basis  of  the perinanence  of  man's  nature 
[and  character  in  the  world  to  come,  that  the  position  in  question  rests.  The 
wicked  in  hell  are  not  tormented  by  remorse  of  conscience  because,  the  very 
^effect  of  their  wickedness  is  to  destroy  conscience,  as  we  see  evinced  beyond 
^all  question  in  the  present  life.    Who  but  is  aware  that  every  act  of  crime  dead- 
•  ens  more  and  more  the  sense  of  guilt,  till  in  some  cases  there  results  a  perfect 
obtuseness  of  the  moral  sensibility  ?    The  career  of  iniquity  does  not  perhaps 
often  reach  this  point  in  the  present  world :  but  the  inherent  and  inevitable  tend- 
ency of  all  evil  is  to  extinguish  conscience,  and  consequently  remorse,  which  acts  by 
means  of  conscience.    How  often  do  we  learn  from  the  confessions  of  those 
who  have  become  monsters  in  crime,  that  the  inward  voice  of  remonstrance 
which  rebuked  the  first  stages  of  their  transgression,  became  fainter  and  fainter 
as  they  advanced,  till  at  last  it  died  away  in  their  ear,  and  conscience  became 
seared  as  with  a  red  hot  iron But  you  will  probably  say  of  conscience  in  such 
cases  that  it  "  is  not  dead,  but  sleepeth,"  that  its  function  is  merely  temporarily 
in  abeyance,  and  that  it  will  eventually  awaken  and  speak  in  thunder  tones  to 
the  ear  of  the  soul.    Yet  what  solid  reasons  have  we  for  this  opinion I  readily 
admit  that  the  worst  men,  particularly  in  Christian  countries,  where  the  moral 
sense  of  the  community  creates  a  kind  of  conscientious  sphere  that  is  widely  per- 
vasive, ^vill  often  experience  transient,pangs  and  checks  in  the  progress  of  crime, 
but  this  is  owing  to  the  influence  of  remains,  ox  sentiments  of  goodness  and  truth 
stored  away  in  the  mind  in  infancy  and  childhoodf  which  are  slow  in  being  ex"- 
tinguished,  but  extinguished  they  may  be,  and  eventually  are,  in  all  the  irreclaim- 
^ably  evil,  either  in  this  life  or  the  next.    I  admit  too  that  when  crime  has  lost  its 
^  *^impunity  and  the  offender  is  brought  up  and  called  to  face  the  prospect  of  pun-  : 
ishment  awarded  by  the  law,  and  to  cast  his  eye  directly  forward  into  what  he  -j 
has  been  taught  to  consider  hell — as  a  place  of  intolerable  misery— he  will,  in  ^" 
conjunction  with  the  acting  of  remains,  be  visited  by  a  "certain  fearful  looking 
for  of  judgment,"  which  is  ordinarily  termed  the  operation  of  remorse,  but  the 
emotion  when  analysed  will  be  found  to  be  mainly  prospective  in  its  intimations  - 
and  of  the  same  nature  with  fear.    So  far  as  it  is  retrospective  it  is  merely  the  per- 
ception  of  the  causes  which  have  led  to  certain  effects,  from  the  experience  of 
which  the  soul  instinctively  shrinks/  But  it  does  not  necessarily  imply  any  real 
regret — any  godly  sorrow — for  sin  as  sin,  since  this  would  he  a  germ  of  repent- 
euce  and  reformation.    All  this  mustof  course  become  extinct  when  the  ultima- 
■  tura  is  reached,  and  the  soul  is  let  fully  in  to  its  ruling  principle  and  the  delight 
of  its  love,  as  it  is  in  hell.    It  is  there  in  its  very  element  and  life,'and  it  can  have 
no  more  prompting  or  desire  to  change  the  current  of  its  life's  love  than  a  flowing 
^  stream  can  have  any  tendency  to  reverse  its  current  and  flow  backward.  The 
following  will  be  seen  to  be  a  very  impressive  paragra^^h  as  viewed  in  this  con- 
nexion 

"  As  to  what  concerns  resistance  from  the  will,  it  is  to  be  known  that  the 
will  (i.  e.  the  love-principle)  is  what  rules  the  man.    It  is  believed  by  some  that  - 
the  understanding  rules,  but  the  understanding  does  not  rule  unless  the  will 
inclines;  for  the  understanding  favors  the  will,  inasmuch  as  the  understanding, 
considered  in  itself,  is  nothing  else  but  a  form  of  the  will.    When  it  is  said  the  i 
will,  the  affection  which  is  of  the  love  is  meant,  for  the  will  of  man  is  nothing  ~ 
else;  this  affection  is  what  rules  man,  for  the  affection  of  love  is  his  life.   If  "j; 

-Tec.  0 

  _  y.    ^ 


»^   ^uc^        ei- <VV7  a/r ,  U .  


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  185 

man's  affection  be  that  of  self  and  the  world,  then  his  whole  life  is  nothing  else, 
nor  can  he  strive  against  it,  for  this  would  be  to  strive  against  his  owii  life  ; 
principles  of  trnth  effect  nothing;  if  tlie  affection  of  those  loves  has  dominion,  it 
draws  trnth  over  to  its  side,  and  so  falsifies  it,  and  if  it  does  not  so  favor,  rejects 
it.  From  these  considerations  it  may  now  be  manifest,  that  man  in  no  case  sets 
his  heart  to  any  truth,  if  the  will  resists  :  hence  it  is  that  the  infernals,  inasmuch 
as  they  are  in  the  affections  or  lusts  of  evil,  cannot  receive  the  truths  of  faith, 
consequently  cannot  be  amended." — A.  C.  7342. 

Remorse  can  only  arise  when  the  soul  is  still  in  a  condition  to  array  before 
itself,  by  an  intellectual  process,  the  antagonism  existing  between  the  evil  which 
it  loves  and  the  good  for  which  it  was  designed.  This  is  the  plane  on  which 
conscience  can  generally  act  in  the  present  life,  but  this  plane  perishes  when  the 
soul  passes  into  hell,  and  the  evil  love  becomes  so  overwhelmingly  predomi- 
nant that  all  the  opposing  judgments  of  the  intellect  melt  away  and  are  absorbed 
into  it,  and  the  very  sense  of  the  contrariety  between  its  present  state  and  its 
original  destination  to  a  better  is  utterly  lost.  Where  then  is  the  ground  for  the 
actings  of  remorse How  can  a  soul  feel  remorse  that  has  reached  the  point  of 
saying,  "  Evil  be  thou  my  good  .'"  "  I  have  occasionally  discoursed,"  says  our 
author,  "  with  those  in  another  life  who  have  been  in  the  delights  of  evil  and 
the  false,  and  it  was  given  me  to  tell  them,  that  they  have  no  life  till  they  are 
deprived  of  their  delights.  They  replied,  as  such  people  in  the  world  say,  that 
if  they  were  deprived  of  those  delights,  there  would  be  nothing  of  life  remain- 
ing with  them.  But  it  was  given  me  to  answer,  that  life  then  first  commences, 
and  is  attended  with  such  happiness  as  is  enjoyed  in  heaven,  which  is  compar- 
atively ineffable.  This,  however,  they  were  unable  to  comprehend,  because  what  is  un- 
known is  believed  to  be  nothing."  It  seems,  therefore,  that  they  had  lost  the  very 
perception  of  a  contrary  kind  of  life,  that  is,  of  a  contrary  love. 

And  now  permit  me  to  ask,  what  there  is  in  all  this  that  tends  to  lower  an  in- 
telligent estimate  of  the  real  constituents  of  hell What  that  goes  to  weaken  the 
moral  power  of  the  sanctions  drawn  from  this  source  to  enforce  the  claims  of  a 
holy  life  ?  Can  a  reflecting  mind  conceive  a  more  terrific  idea  of  perdition  than' 
when  viewed  as  a  state  in  which  not  only  conscience  and  remorse  have  become 
extnict,  but  their  very  ground-work  destroyed,  and  even  the  sense  of  an  opposite 
internal  state  of  the  soul  annihilated  .'  Not  but  that  these  wretched  spirits  know, 
byabarren  intellection,  that  there  is  a  heaven,  and  that  they  are  not  in  it,  just  as  a 
supremely  wicked  man  may  know  that  there  is  such  a  form  of  character  as  that 
possessed  by  a  devout  and  humble  Christian.  But  what  kind  of  knowledge  is 
this  ?  Does  it  approach  to  anything  like  a  realizing  sense  of  the  difference 
"Between  the  two  characters Can  it  consist  with  the  least  true  desire  for  an 
inward  change  in  himself,  so  long  as  he  remains  under  the  full  power  of  his  evil, 
selfish,  and  sensual  love  There  is  to  me  something  inexpressibly  awful  in  the 
representation  given  on  this  head  in  what  follows,  particularly  the  relation  at  the 
close : — 

"Delight  is  the  all  of  life  to  all  in  heaven,  and  the  all  of  life  to  all  in  hell. 
Those  who  are  in  heaven,  have  the  delight  of  what  is  good  and  true,  but  those 
who  are  in  hell  have  the  delight  of  what  is  evil  and  false ;  for  all  delight  is  pf 
love,  and  love  is  the  esse  of  the  life  of  man;  wherefore,  as  man  is  man  according 
to  the  quality  of  his  love,  so  he  is  man  according  to  the  quality  of  his  delight. 
The  activity  of  love  makes  the  sense  of  delight ;  the  activity  of  it  in  heaven  is 
with  wisdom,  and  the  activity  of  it  in  hell  is  with  insanity ;  each  in  its  subjects 


186 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


exhibits  delight.  But  the  heavens  and  the  hells  are  in  opposite  delights ;  the  heav- 
ens being  in  the  love  of  good,  and  thence  in  the  delight  of  doing  good;  but  the 
hells,  in  .the  love  of  evil,  and  thence  in  the  delight  of  doing  evil.    If,  therefore, 
'you  know  what  delight  is,  you  will  know  what  heaven  and  hell  are.    The  will, 
from  which  man  is  man,  is  not  moved  even  a  single  atom,  except  by  delight ;  for 
the  will,  viewed  in  itself,  is  only  an  affection  of  some  love,  thus  of  delight;  for  it  is 
some  pleasure,  and  thence  satisfaction,  which  causes  it  to  will ;  and  because  the 
will  impels  the  understanding  to  think,  there  is  not  given  the  least  of  thought 
but  from  the  influent  delight  of  the  wUl.    The  reason  that  it  is  so,  is  because  the 
Lord,  by  influx  from  Himself,  actuates  all  things  of  the  soul  and  all  things  of  the 
mind  with  angels,  spirits  and  men;  and  He  actuates  by  an  influx  of  love  and 
wisdom,  and  this  influx  is  the  very  activity  from  which  all  delight  is,  which  in 
its  origin  is  called  blessed,  prosperous  and  happy ;  and  in  its  derivation,  delightful 
agreeable  and  pleasant;  and  in  a  universal  sense,  good.    But  infernal  spirits  in- 
vert all  things  with  them:  thus  they  turn  the  good  into  evil,  and  the  true  into 
false,  delight  still  remaining,  for  unless  delight  remained,  they  would  not  have 
will,  nor  sensation,  thus  not  life.    Hence  it  is  manifest,  what  and  whence  is  the 
delightof  hell,  and  also  what  and  whence  is  the  delight  of  heaven.  *  *  *  The  earth 
then  opened,  and  through  the  opening  three  devils  ascended,  appearing  ignited 
from  the  delight  of  their  love ;  and  because  the  angels  who  were  consociated 
with  the  novitiate  spirit,  perceived  that  those  three  providentially  ascended  from 
hell,  they  cried  to  the  devils, '  Do  not  come  any  nearer,  but  from  the  place  where 
you  are,  tell  something  concerning  your  delights.'    And  they  replied, '  Know  that 
every  one,  whether  he  be  called  good  or  evil,  is  in  his  own  delight;  the  good,  so 
called,  in  his,  and  the  evil,  so  called,  in  his.'    And  the  angels  asked, '  What  is 
your  delight.''    They  said  that  it  was  the  delight  of  committing  whoredom,  of 
revenging,  of  defrauding,  and  of  blaspheming.    And  again  they  asked, '  What  is 
the  quality  of  those  delights  of  yours .-'    They  said,  that  they  were  perceived  by 
others  as  fetid  smells  from  dunghills,  as  putrid  smells  from  dead  bodies,  and 
as  noisome  smells  from  filthy  pools.    And  they  asked, '  Are  those  things  de- 
lightful to  you They  said,  '  They  are  most  delightful.'    Then  said  they, '  You 
are  like  the  unclean  beasts  that  live  in  them.'    And  they  replied,  '  If  we  are,  we 
are;  but  such  things  are  the  delight  of  our  nostrils.'    And  they  asked, '  What 
more.''    They  said, '  It  is  lawful  for  every  one  to  be  in  his  own  delight,  even 
the  most  unclean,  as  they  call  it,  provided  he  do  not  infest  good  spirits  and  an- 
gels ;  but  because,  from  our  delight,  we  could  not  do  otherwise  than  infest  them 
we  were  cast  into  work-houses,  where  we  suffer  hard  things.    The  hindering 
and  withdrawing  of  our  delights  there  are  what  are  called  the  torments  of  hell; 
there  is  also  interior  pain.'    And  they  asked, '  Why  did  you  infest  the  good  ?' 
They  said  that '  They  could  not  do  otherwise.    It  is  as  if  fury  seized  us,  when 
we  see  any  angel,  and  feel  the  divine  sphere  of  the  Lord  around  him.'    To  which 
we  said, '  Then  you  are  also  like  wild  beasts.'    And  presently,  when  they  saw 
the  novifiate  spirit  with  the  angels,  fury  came  upon  the  devils,  which  appeared 
like  the  fire  of  hatred ;  wherefore,  lest  t'liey  should  do  harm,  they  were  cast  back 
into  hell."— r.  C.  R.  570. 

You  will  read  therefore  in  what  I  have  now  said  an  answer  to  your  inquiry  in 
the  ensuing  paragraph. 

"The  inquiry  presents  itself  for  our  consideration,  whether  these  detailed 
accounts  of  the  various  forms  of  punishment  in  hell — accounts  so  minute,  and 
spun  out  to  such  a  length,  and  often  described  in  language  which  is  so  indecent 
and  ofi"eiisive,— whether  they  are  likely  to  make  as  suitable  and  salutary  an  im- 
pression on  the  minds  of  men,  as  the  brief,  but  striking  and  awful  representa- 
tions of  future  punishment  which  were  made  by  Christ  and  the  Apostles.  It  is 
sufficient  for  us,  that  they  are  not  found  in  tlie  Scriptures— that  they  are  addititMis 
to  the  word  of  God.— p.  J  38. 

Permit  me  to  inquire  whether  you  do  not  believe  there  will  be  many  things 
found  in  the  experience  both  of  heaven  and  hell,  which  are  not  expressly  men- 
tioned in  the  Scriptures The  true  question  is,  whether  the  grounds  of  this 


J 


-n 


REPLY  TO  DR  WOODS.  187 

experience  are  not  laid  in  the  constitution  of  man's  nature,  so  that  the  experience 
itself  shall  be  absolutely  inevitable.  I  have  for  myself  much  more  than  a  suspi- 
cion that  all  that  Swcdcnborg  has  declared  on  this  subject  will  be  found  in  the 
issue  to  be  true. 

XV.  Miracles. — "  We  have  seen  that  Swedenborg  made  no  pretensions  to  the  - 
power  of  working  miracles,  and  held  that  miracles  are  not  to  be  expected  at  the 
present  day.  I  will  not  stop  to  inquire,  how  the  visits  he  made  to  heaven  and  ; 
hell,  and  to  the  planets,  and  the  starry  worlds,  and  the  revelations  made  to  him 
there,  differ  essentially  from  miracles.  My  design  is  merely  to  notice  the  reason 
he  gives,  why  miracles  are  not  to  be  expected  at  the  present  day ;  namely,  'that 
they  carry  compulsion  with  them,  and  take  away  man's  free  will  in  spiritual 
things.'  I  cannot  admit  tliis  reason  to  be  valid.  For  if  this  is  the  nature  and 
tendency  of  miracles,  then  all  the  miracles  wrought  by  Christ  to  prove  his  Mes- 
siahship,  and  all  those  wrought  by  the  Apostles  to  confirm  the  truth  of  the  gos- 
pel and  the  faith  of  Christians,  carried  compulsion  with  them,  and  took  away 
man's  free  will ;  and,  of  course,  those  who  witnessed  the  miracles,  so  far  as  they 
experienced  the  designed  effects  of  them,  were  under  a  compulsory  influence, 
which  deprived  them  of  their  free  will,  and  rendered  them  incapable  of  anything 
morally  excellent  or  praiseworthy.  If  such  be  the  case,  how  strange  it  is,  that 
Christ  did  so  many  miracles  himself,  and  gave  miraculous  powers  to  so  many 
of  his  disciples,  and  that  such  an  important  use  was  made  of  miracles  in  the 
propagation  of  the  Christian  religion !  What  a  groundless  fancy,  that  miracles 
such  as  were  wrought  by  Moses  and  Joshua  and  Elijah,  and  by  Christ  and  his 
Apostles, '  carried  compulsion  with  them,  and  took  away  man's  free  will !'  " 

The  use  and  design  of  miracles  in  connection  with  a  revelation  from  heaven 
is  often,  I  think,  very  crudely  considered  by  theologians,  and  for  one  I  feel  greatly 
indebted  to  Swedenborg  for  the  light  which  he  has  thrown  on  the  subject.  The 
drift  of  his  teaching  is,  that  the  design  of  miracles  is  mainly  to  cqmpet ^attention  to 
a  divine  message,  the  constraining  evidence  of  which  is,  at  the  same  time,  really 
.  in  the  truth  itself  announced.    This  evidence  the  mind  must  receive  by  the  light 
inhering  in  the  evidence  in  order  to  command  faith.    The  intrinsic  effect  of  mira- 
,  cles  falls  short  of  this,  and  merely  produces  a  kind  of  persuasior/aSecting  rather 
the  external  than  the  internal  region  of  the  mind.    As  a  confirmation  of  moral; 
truth  a  miracle  undoubtedly  does  a  species  of  violence  to  the  tranquillity  of.' 
rational  belief,  and  it  is  only  in  this  way  that  Swedenborg  represents  it  as  mill-  ' 
■  s_i  tilting  with  free  agency.   The  mind  is  conscious  of  a  certain  astounding  and  con-^' 
^  founding  effect  produced  upon  it  by  an  exhibition  to  the  senses  of  a  supernatural 
power,  which  tends  to  suspend,  to  a  degree,  the  free  and  calm  exercise  of  the 
judgment  in  view  of  the  internal  character  of  the  doctrine  proposed  to  be  estab- . 
>    ^  lished. 

But  in  order  to  assure  myself  of  not  dohig  an  imperfect  justice  to  Swedenborg's 
enunciations  on  this  head  and  to  give  the  reader  the  fairest  opportunity  to  judge 
f    ^  of  their  soundness,  I  shall  make  him  the  expounder  of  his  own  doctrine. 

O  i  '^  »- 

^  vj     "  That  no  one  is  reformed  bymiracles  and  signs,  because  they  compel. — That  man  has 

'  ,^  an  internal  and  an  external  of  thought,  and  that  the  Lord"Hows  in  through  the 
^    '  internal  of  thought  into  its  external  with  man,  and  thus  teaches  and  leads  him, 
^      was  shown  above :  also  that  it  is  from  the  Divine  Providence  of  the  Lord  that 
man  should  act  from  freedom  according  to  reason :  both  of  these  would  perish 


188 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


with  man,  if  miracles  were  done,  and  man  was  driven  by  them  to  believe.  That 
it  is  so,  may  be  seen  rationally  thus  :  it  cannot  be  denied  but  that  miracles  in- 
duce faith  and  strongly  persuade  that  that  is  true  which  he  who  does  the  mira- 
cles says  and  teaches ;  and  that  this  in  the  commencement  so  occupies  the  ex- 
ternal of  man's  thought,  that  it  as  it  were  binds  and  enchants  :  but  man  is  there- 
by deprived  of  his  two  faculties,  which  are  called  rationality  and  liberty,  so  that 
he  cannot  act  from  freedom  according  to  reason,  and  then  the  Lord  cannot  flow 
in  through  the  internal  into  the  external  of  his  thought,  except  only  to  leave  to 
man  to  confirm  that  thing  from  his  rationality  which  was  made  of  his  faith  by 
the  miracle.  The  state  of  man's  thought  is  such,  that  by  the  internal  of  thought 
he  sees  a  thing  in  the  external  of  his  thought,  as  in  a  certain  mirror ;  for,  as  was 
said  above,  man  can  see  his  thought,  which  cannot  be  given  except  from  interior 
thought. 

"  From  these  things  it  may  be  evident,  that  faith  induced  by  miracles  is  not 
faith,  but  persuasion ;  for  there  is  not  any  rational  in  it,  still  less  any  spiritual ; 
for  it  is  only  an  external  without  an  internal :  it  is  the  like  with  all  that  man  does 
from  that  persuasive  faith,  whether  he  acknowledges  God,  or  worships  Him  at 
home  or  in  temples,  or  does  kindnesses :  when  a  miracle  alone  induces  man  to 
acknowledgment,  worship  and  piety,  he  acts  from  the  natural  man,  and  not  from 
the  spiritual;  for  a  miracle  infuses  faith  through  an  external  way,  and  not 
through  an  internal  way ;  thus  from  the  world,  and  not  from  heaven ;  and  the 
Lord  does  not  enter  through  any  other  way  with  man  but  through  the  internal 
way,  which  is  through  the  Word,  doctrine  and  preachings  from  it :  and  because 
miracles  shut  this  way,  therefore  at  this  day  no  miracles  are  done. 

"  But  the  effect  of  miracles  is  other  with  the  good  than  with  the  evil ;  the  good 
do  not  wish  miracles,  but  believe  the  miracles  which  are  in  the  Word  ;  and  if 
they  hear  anything  concerning  a  miracle,  they  do  not  attend  to  it  otherwise  than 
as  to  a  light  argument  which  confirms  their  faith ;  for  they  think  from  the  Word, 
thus  from  the  Lord,  and  not  from  a  miracle.  The  evil  do  otherwise ;  they  indeed 
may  be  driven  and  compelled  to  faith,  yea,  to  worship  and  to  piety,  by  miracles ; 
but  only  for  a  little  time ;  for  their  evils  are  shut  up,  the  concupiscences  of  which 
and  the  delights  thence,  continually  act  into  the  external  of  their  worship  and 
piety ;  and  that  they  may  get  out  of  their  confinement  and  burst  forth,  they  think 
concerning  the  miracle,  and  at  length  call  it  a  mockery  and  an  artifice,  or  the 
work  of  nature,  and  thus  they  return  into  their  evils ;  and  he  who  returns  into 
his  evils  after  worship,  profanes  the  truths  and  goods  of  worship  ;  and  the  lot 
of  profaners  after  death  is  the  worst  of  all :  these  are  they  who  are  understood 
by  the  words  of  the  Lord  in  Matt.  xii.  43,  44,  45;  whose  latter  state  becomes 
worse  than  the  former.  Besides,  if  miracles  were  done  with  those  who  do  not 
believe  from  the  miracles  in  the  Word,  they  would  be  done  continually  and  be- 
fore the  sight  with  all  such.  From  these  things  it  may  be  evident  whence  it  is 
that  miracles  are  not  done  at  this  day." — D.  P.  130-133. 

The  application  of  the  general  principle  is  made,  in  the  ensuing  extract,  to  the 
case  of  the  Jewish  nation,  whom  he  uniformly  represents  as  an  eminently  exter- 
nal people,  and  requiring,  from  their  peculiar  genius,  a  system  of  moral  disci- 
pline that  is  neither  called  for  nor  appropriate  under  the  Christian  economy. 

"  As  to  what  concerns  prodigies  and  signs,  which  are  treated  of  in  what  now 
follows,  it  is  to  be  known  that  they  were  done  amongst  such  as  were  m  external 
worship,  and  did  not  desire  to  be  acquainted  with  internal.  They  also  who 
were  in  such  worship  were  to  be  driven  by  external  means ;  hence  it  is  that 
miracles  were  done  amongst  the  Israelitish  and  Jewish  people,  for  they  were 
solely  in  external  worship,  and  in  no  internal ;  and  also  external  worship  was 
what  they  ought  to  be  in,  when  they  were  not  willing  to  be  in  internal  worship, 
to  the  intent  that  in  externals  they  might  represent  holy  things,  and  so  commu- 
nication might  be  given  with  heaven,  as  by  somewhat  of  a  church,  for  (corres- 
pondences, representatives,  and  significatives  conjoin  the  natural  world  to  the 
spiritual :  hence  now  it  was,  that  so  many  miracles  were  done  amongst  that 
nation.  But  amongst  those  who  were  in  internal  worship,  that  is,  in  charity  and 
faith,  miracles  are  not  done,  for  thoy  are  hurtful  to  them,  inasmuch  as  miracles 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


189 


compel  to  bclicvo,  and  what  is  of  compulsion  does  not  remain,  but  is  dissipated. 
The  internal  things  of  worship,  which  are  faith  and  charily,  are  to  be  implanted  C) 
in  a  free  principle,  for  then  they  are  apiiropriated,  and  the  things  which  are  so 
appropriated  remain  ;  bnt  the  things  a\  hich  are  implanted  in  a  state  of  compul- 
sion, remain  out  of  tlie  internal  man  in  the  external :  for  into  the  internal  man  ^ 
nothing  enters  except  by  intellectual  ideas,  which  are  reasons  [rationes],  for  the  \ 
ground  which  there  receives  is  the  rational  illustrated  :  hence  it  is  that  no  mira-^> 
cles  are  wrought  at  this  day.  That  they  are  also  hurtful,  may  hence  be  mani- 
fest :  for  they  drive  men  to  believe,  and  fix  ideas  in  the  external  man  that  it  is 
SO;  if  the  internal  man  afterwards  denies  what  miracles  have  confirmed,  then 
an  opposition  and  collision  of  the  internal  and  external  man  takes  place,  and  at 
length,  when  the  ideas  derived  from  miracles  are  dissipated,  there  is  effected  a 
conjunction  of  the  false  and  the  true,  thus  profanation.  Hence  it  is  evident,  how 
hurtful  miracles  are  in  this  day  in  the  church,  in  which  the  internals  of  worship 
are  discovered.  These  things  are  also  signified  by  the  Lord's  words  to  Thomas, 
'  Because  thou  hast  seen  Me,  Thomas,  thou  hast  believed  ;  blessed  are  they  who 
do  not  see,  and  believe'  (John  xx.  29) :  so  also  they  are  blessed,  who  do  not  be- 
lieve by  miracles.  But  miracles  are  not  hurtful  to  those  who  are  in  external 
worship  without  internal,  for  with  such  no  opposition  can  be  given  of  the  inter- 
nal and  external  man,  thus  no  collision,  consequently  no  profanation.  That 
miracles  do  not  contribute  anything  to  faith,  may  be  sufficiently  manifest  from 
the  miracles  wrought  amongst  the  people  of  Israel  in  Egypt,  and  in  the  wilder- 
ness, in  that  they  had  no  effect  at  all  upon  them :  for  that  people,  although  they 
so  lately  saw  so  many  miracles  in  Egypt,  afterwards  the  Red  Sea  divided,  and 
the  Egyptians  overwhelmed  therein,  the  pillar  of  the  cloud  going  before  them  by 
day,  and  the  pillar  of  fire  by  night,  the  manna,  daily  showering  down  from 
heaven ;  and  although  they  saw  Mount  Sinai  in  smoke,  and  heard  Jehovah  thence 
speaking,  with  other  miracles  of  a  like  kind  ;  nevertheless,  in  the  midst  of  such 
things,  they  declined  from  all  faith,  and  from  the  worship  of  Jehovah  to  the 
worship  of  a  calf  (Exod.  xxxii.  1  to  the  end^  hence  it  is  evident  what  is  the  ef- 
fect of  miracles.  Still  less  would  be  their  effect  at  this  day,  when  it  is  not  ac- 
knowledged that  there  is  anything  from  the  spiritual  world,  and  when  everything 
of  the  sort  which  takes  place,  and  which  is  not  attributed  to  nature,  is  denied  : 
for  a  principle  of  denial  universally  reigns  against  the  divine  influx  and  govern- 
ment in  the  earths;  wherefore  at  this  day  the  man  of  the  church,  if  he  were  to 
see  the  veriest  divine  miracles,  would  first  bring  them  down  into  nature,  and 
tliere  defile  them,  and  afterwards  would  reject  them  as  phantasms,  and  lastly 
would  laugh  at  all  who  attributed  them  to  the  Divine,  and  not  to  nature  :  that 
miracles  are  of  no  effect,  is  also  evident  from  the  Lord's  words  in  Luke  ;  '  If  they 
hear  not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they  be  persuaded  though  one  rose 
from  the  dead'  (xvi.  31)."— A.  C.  7290. 

The  subject  is  still  farther  prosecuted  in  the  paragraph  annexed,  in  which  you 
will  probably  dissent  from  what  he  says  respecting  the  church  of  the  present 
day  having  virtually  taken  away  the  free  agency  of  man  by  a  formal  decreeing  of 
his  impotence  in  spiritual  things.  But  his  proofs  on  this  head  are  given  in 
another  part  of  the  volume,  w^here  they  challenge  refutation,  and  in  the  mean 
time  the  burden  of  his  doctrine  on  the  general  subject  may  be  viewed  apart 
from  his  sentiments  on  this  special  topic. 

"  It  is  asked  at  this  day,  why  miracles  are  not  done,  as  formerly ;  for  it  is  be- 
lieved that  if  they  were  done,  eveiy  one  would,  in  heart,  acknowledge.  But 
the  reason  that  miracles  are  not  done  at  this  day,  as  before,  is  because  miracles 
force,  and  take  away  free  agency  in  spiritual  tilings,  and  from  spiritual  make 
man  natural.  Every  one  in  the  Christian  world,  since  the  coming  of  the  Lord, 
may  become  spiritual,  and  he  is  made  spiritual  solely  by  Him  through  the  Word  ; 
but  the  faculty  for  this  would  be  lost,  if  man  were  brought  by  miracles  to  believe, 
since  these,  as  was  said  above,  force  and  take  away  from  him  free  agency  in 
spiritual  things ;  and  everything  forced  in  such  things,  brings  itself  into  the  natu^ 
ral  man,  and  shuts  up,  as  with  a  door,  the  spiritual,  which  is  truly  the  internal 


190 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS 


man,  and  deprives  this  of  all  power  of  seeing  any  truth  m  the  light;  wherefore 
afterwards  he  reasons  concerning  spiritual  things  from  the  natural  man  alone, 
r  which  sees  everything  truly  spiritual  upside  down.    But  the  reason  that  mira- 
5   cles  were  done,  before  the  coming  of  the  Lord,  was,  because  then  the  men  of 
the  church  were  natural,  to  whom  spiritual  things,  which  are  the  internals  of  the 
church,  could  not  be  opened;  for  if  they  had  been  opened,  they  would  have 
profaned  them.    Wherefore  also  all  their  worship  consisted  in  rituals,  which  rep- 
)    resented  and  signified  the  internal  things  of  the  church ;  and  they  could  not 
/'"be  brought  to  perform  those  rightly,  except  by  miracles;  and  that  they  could 
not  even  by  miracles,  because  in  those  representatives  there  was  a  spiritual  in- 
C  ternal,  is  manifest  from  the  sons  of  Israel  in  the  wilderness,  Avho,  although  they 
r  had  seen  so  many  miracles  in  Egypt,  and  afterwards  that  greatest  one  upon 
y  mount  Smai,  still,  after  a  month  of  days,  when  Moses  was  absent,  they  danced 
around  a  golden  calf,  and  cried  that  that  had  brought  them  forth  out  of  Egypt. 
Very  similar  things  were  done  by  them  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  although  they 
;   saw  the  excellent  miracles  done  by  Elijah  and  Elisha,  and  at  last  those  truly  di- 
I  vine  by  the  Lord.    Mhacles  are  not  done  at  this  day,  especially  for  this  reason, 
I   because  the  church  has  taken  away  all  free  agency  from  man ;  and  it  has  taken 
I  it  away  by  this,  that  it  has  decreed  that  man  can  contribute  nothing  at  all  towards 
\  receiving  faith,  nor  anything  to  conversion,  and  in  general  to  salvation  (see  above, 
*"  n.  464).    The  man  who  believes  these  things,  becomes  more  and  more  natural, 
and  the  natural  man,  as  was  said  above,  beholds  everything  spiritual  upside 
down,  and  thence  thinks  against  it.    The  higher  region  of  man's  mind,  where 
free  agency  in  spiritual  things  primarily  resides,  would  be  closed  up,  and  spir- 
itual thuigs,  which  have  been,  as  it  were,  confirmed  by  miracles,  would  occupy 
the  lower  region  of  the  mind,  which  is  merely  natural ;  thus  above  this  there 
would  remain  falses  concerning  faith,  conversion  and  salvation." — T.  C.  R.  501. 

I  can  scarcely  deem  it  necessary  to  enlarge  farther  upon  this  point.  My  ob- 
ject has  been,  as  generally  elsewhere,  to  exhibit  Swedenborg's  genuine  teachings 
in  contrast  both  with  the  erroneous  presentation  often  made  of  them  and  with 
the  objections  urged  against  them  when  rightly  presented.  In  the  department 
we  are  now  considermg,  I  must  regard  his  positions  as  mtrinsically  sound,  and 
so  far  as  he  declares  the  absence  of  miraculous  attestation  a  distinguishing  fea- 
ture of  his  mission,  it  commends  itself  more  powerfully  to  my  acceptance,  and 
that  too  not  only  for  the  reasons  he  has  assigned,  but  because  also  of  my  fuU 
conviction  that  no  external  miracles  would  be  believed  to  be  miracles  by  the 
great  mass  of  men  in  christian  countries.  They  would  infallibly  be  dealt  with  as 
you  deal  with  the  remarkable  occun-ences  which  are  referred  to,  but  not  appealed 
to,  as  having  taken  place  in  regard  to  Swedenborg  himself.  While  you  have  not  a 
word  to  say  by  way  of  impeaching  the  testimony  on  which  the  facts  are  affirmed, 
and  while  the  sun  in  the  heavens  is  not  more  obvious  to  the  eye  than  the  inference 
is  to  the  reason,  that  if  the  facts  are  true  they  arc  supernatural — particularly  those 
relating  to  the  disclosures  made  to  the  Queen  of  Sweden,  and  to  the  fire  occurring 
at  Stockholm — yet  they  evidently  have  not  the  slightest  effect  on  your  mind  in  be- 
getting a  conviction  of  what  we  maintain  to  be  their  tnie  character.  And  as  it  is 
with  yourself,  so  doubtless  would  it  be  with  the  majority  of  mankind.  Nothing 
short  of  a  miracle  within  can  make  them  believe  in  the  occurrence  of  miracles  with- 
out, and  it  is  not  according  to  divine  order  to  produce  conviction  in  this  manner. 

The  view  which  Swedenbprg  has  given  of  this  subject  may  be  illustrated  by 
a  supposition.  Suppose,  then,  that  Su:  Isaac  Newton,  with  all  his  scientific 
attainments,  had  risen  up  in  the  days  of  Plato  and  announced  to  him  the  true 
structure  of  the  solar  system,  and  in  confirmation  of  the  truth  of  his  announce- 
ment, had  been  enabled  to  work  one  or  more  miracles.   What  would  have  been 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


191 


the  precise  effect  of  the  miracles,  supposing  them  incontestable,  on  the  mind  of 
the  philosopher .'    Would  it  yot  at  once  have  produced  a  severe  conflict  between 
what  we  may  term  the  jnnn  oftke  senses  and  the  man  of  the  reason? — a  conflict  ex- » 
tremely  unfriendly  to  the  fall  exercise  of  his  mental  freedom.    On  the  one  hand  \ 
his  senses  arc  appealed  to  by  a  supernatural  demonstration  which  he  knows  not  / 
how  to  resist;  and  on  the  other,  his  educated  beUef  and  the  whole  current  of \ 
his  convictions  pronounce  against  the  truth  of  the  alleged  theory.   He  is  thus  / 
indeed  brought  into  "  a  strait  betwixt  two."    He  knows  not  what  to  think, 
and  probably  at  first  fails  to  think  at  all.    A  kind  of  paralysis  has  fallen  upon 
his  intellectual  powers,  an  effect  which  in  the  parallel  case  Swedenborg  des- 
cribes as  a  sort  of  susj^ending  of  a  man's  free  agency — a  phrase,  however,  which 
is  evidently  not  to  be  pushed  to  the  utmost  extremity  of  its  import.  Suppose 
again  that  the  astronomer  consents  to  wave  all  appeal  to  the  miracles,  and  pro- 
ceeds to  unfold  to  the  philosopher  on  purely  scientific  and  mathematical  princi- 
ples the  grounds  of  his  announcement.   By  a  consecutive  process  of  reasoning 
he  leads  his  mmd  along  from  step  to  step  in  the  demonstration,  submitting  every 
thing  to  the  light  of  his  understanding,  till  at  length  his  hearer  stands  convinced 
that  the  conclusion  is  irresistible — that  the  earth  revolves  around  the  sun,  and 
that  the  assumed  law  of  gravitation  is  established  beyond  dispute.    Which  of 
these  modes  of  proof,  the  miraculous  or  the  rational,  is  most  valuable  in  itself? 
Which  state  of  mind  the  most  desirable  to  be  wrought  in  view  of  the  truth  pro- 
claimed    Is  there  any  room  to  hesitate  in  pronouncing  a  verdict?    The  mira- 
cles might  be  usefully  available  in  arresting  the  philosopher's  attention  to  the 
proposed  scientific  development,  if  he  were  otherwise  disposed  to  treat  it  lightly, 
but  it  is  plain  that  the  internal  evidence  does  the  execution.   From  this  illustration 
you  can  at  once  see  the  grounds  on  which  the  receivers  of  Swedenborg's  doc- 
trine easily  and  readily  dispense  with  all  miraculous  testimony  in  support  of 
their  truth.    They  feel  the  want  of  no  higher  miracle  than  they  perceive  in  the 
system  itself. 

XVI.    Swedejibqrg^s  Intercourse  with  the  Sjnritual  World. — "In  the  life  of  Swe-J 
denborg  various  testimonies  are  given  to  the  reality  of  his  intercourse  with  the  > 
spiritual  world,  and  of  his  supernatural  knowledge.    From  these  the  following 
are  selected  as  the  most  remarkable.    The  stories  are  contained  in  a  letter  of 
Kant,  the  German  Philosopher." 

You  go  on  briefly  to  recite  these  "  stories,"  as  you  are  pleased  to  term  them, 
namely,  that  which  relates  to  Swedenborg's  divulging  to  the  Queen  of  Sweden 
the  private  conversation  which  he  had  with  her  brother  the  Prince  Royal  of 
Prussia  shortly  before  his  death,  which  she  positively  affirmed  that  she  never 
had  repeated  and  which  she  was  confident  that  he  would  not — that  relating  to  the 
discovery  by  Mad.  Harteville  of  a  lost  receipt  given  her  deceased  husband  before 
his  death,  and  which  was  found  precisely  as  indicated  by  Swedenborg — and  that 
concerning  the  fire  which  Swedenborg  declared,  at  the  very  time,  to  have  broken 
out  at  Stockholm,  though  he  was  300  miles  distant  at  Gothenburg,  and  the  cor- 
rectness of  which,  as  to  the  time  and  place  of  its  commencement,  the  extent  of 
its  ravages,  and  the  period  of  its  cessation,  was  minutely  confirmed  three  or  four 
days  after. 

Of  these  various  asserted  and  attested  facts,  into  which  the  philosopher  Kar* 

7^  ^  V    -x  <  u    •'  .      ■'-  t  .  ,     ..  ..  !■  .,, 


192  .  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

instituted  a  rigid  inquiry  and  found  nothing  to  countervail  the  testimony,  you 
remark : 

"Now  I  shall  not  undertake  to  search  out  the  hidden  causes  of  such  marvel- 
lous events.  The  means  of  doing  this  are  not  in  my  power.  But  what  then  ? 
We  have  heard  stories  of  fortune-tellers,  jugglers,  and  dreamers,  and  persons 
magnetized,  quite  as  unaccountable  and  astounding  as  these.  And  who  can 
account  for  some  of  the  feats  of  insanity  — I  would  not  undertake  to  disprove 
the  authenticity  of  the  stories  related  of  Swedenborg.  And  what  then  ?  In  all 
ages  wizards  and  witches  have  said  and  done  things  seemingly  preternatural 
and  very  astonishing. — Many  such  things  have  taken  place;  and  they  are  cer- 
tainly marvellous  phenomena.  But  the  world  in  general,  in  harmony  with  the 
sacred  writers,  have  always  looked  upon  persons  practising  such  curious  and 
wonderful  arts,  as  deriving  their  extraordinary  power  from  a  very  suspicious 
source.  And  who  thinks  of  yielding  himself  to  a  fortune-teller,  or  a  juggler,  or 
a  magnetized  woman,  as  a  religious  guide — a  teacher  of  new  doctrines,  or  new  moral 
precepts  ?  '  He  that  hath  a  dream,  let  him  tell  a  dream.  And  he  that  hath  my 
word,  let  him  speak  my  word  faithfully.  What  is  the  chaff  to  the  wheat,  saith 
the  Lord.'  And  what  are  all  the  strange  workings  of  the  human  mind  above 
referred  to,  whether  preternatural  or  not,  that  they  should  turn  off  our  affection 
and  confidence  from  the  sure  word  of  God  ?" — p.  142-144. 

It  is  very  certain  that  the  parallel  fails,  in  regard  to  Swedenborg,  in  one  very 
important  particular,  and  that  is,  that  the  "  workings"  of  his  mind  whether  pre- 
ternatural or  not,  so  far  from  tending  to  "  turn  off  our  own  affection  and  confi- 
dence from  the  sure  word  of  God,"  tend  directly  to  draw  them  to  it  and  fix  them 
supremely  upon  it.  The  whole  scope  of  his  writings  is  to  inspire  the  most  lofty, 
reverential,  and  devout  conceptions  of  the  Divme  Oracles,  as  must  have  been 
apparent  to  every  candid  reader  who  has  perused  the  foregoing  series  of  ex- 
tracts. This,  methinks,  should  go  not  a  little  to  do  away  the  impression  of 
their  having  originated  from  the  "  suspicious  source"  to  which  you  allude,  for  it 
does  not  exactly  consist  with  our  ideas  of  diabolical  suggestions  that  they  should 
aim  to  exalt  to  the  highest  possible  pitch  of  spirituality  and  sanctity  our  notions 
of  the  Scriptures  of  truth.  The  policy  of  infernal  promptings  would  doubtless 
be  very  different,  and  I  must  think  that  the  undeniable  fact  that  Swedenborg's 
writings  have  a  scope  so  pre-eminently  scriptural  renders  his  case  an  insoluble 
enigma  in  all  the  common  modes  of  accounting  for  it.  Would  the  spirits  of  dark- 
ness and  illusion  dictate  such  a  body  of  disclosures  and  doctrines  as  that  of 
which  I  have  given  so  many  specimens  in  the  preceding  pages  .'  Do  you  not 
feel  your  mind  pressed  by  the  difficulties  which  crowd  upon  anj'  supposition 
but  that  of  their  divine  origin  and  their  absolute  truth.'  Why  may  not  the  sys- 
tem be  true  Can  you  adduce  stronger  reasons  against  it  than  it  spontaneously 
offers  in  its  own  support  ?  Is  there  not  an  astonishing  plausibility  in  its  devel- 
opments of  our  interior  nature  when  viewed  in  connection  with  the  interior  pur- 
port of  the  Word  ?  Does  it  not  involve  a  psychological  problem  which  must  be 
solved  before  it  can  be  intelligently  rejected  >  Can  you  not  at  least  perceive  so 
much  evidence  in  its  favor  as  to  account  for  the  fact  of  its  cordial  reception  by 
multitudes  of  deeply  reflecting  and  well-balanced  minds  And  is  a  system  that 
wins  its  way  to  assent  in  such  circumstances  deserving  of  the  unmeasured  odi- 
um and  contempt  which  has  so  often  been  showered  upon  it Do  we  not  offer 
reasons  for  our  belief  that  are  well  worthy  of  profound  consideration  If  Swe- 
denborg was  not  favored  with  spiritual  intercourse  how — how — how — shall  the 
amazing  character  of  his  developments  be  accounted  for .'   Insanity  will  not  do 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


19? 


it— dreaming  will  not  do  it— Mesmerism  will  not  do*it.    What  then  remains  but 
the  alternative  of  its  truth  ?    Can  the  mind  rest  with  the  least  assurance  or  satis- 
_  faction  on  any  other  theory  ? 

But  I  have  not  yet  done  with  the  matter  of  miracles. 

"  But  how  singular  it  is,  that  the  followers  of  Swedenborg  should  make  use  of 
any  such  arguments  as  those  above  mentioned  !  Do  they  not  know  that  Swe- 
denborg never  attempted  to  support  the  truth  of  his  pretensions  by  miraculous 
evidence  !  Do  they  not  know  that  he  expressly  discarded  such  evidence,  saying 
that  it  interfered  with  man's  free  agency  We  should  expect  that  Swedenbor- 
gians  would  all  be  true  to  their  Leader,  as  Professor  Bush  is,  and  would  be  care- 
ful not  to  resort  to  arguments  which  he  rejected.  The  case  of  ChriUians  is  very 
different;  for  their  Lord  and  Saviour  often  appealed  to  his  miraculous  works  as 
proof  of  his  Messiahship.  And  such  miracles  as  he  wrought  did  indeed  bear  wit- 
ness of  him,  that  the  Father  had  sent  him.  And  his  disciples  act  consistently, 
'when  they  appeal  tb  his  works  for  the  same  purpose.  But  why  should  the  dis- 
ciples of  Srvcdeiiborix  attempt  to  support  his  authority  by  such  proofs  as  he  de- 
clared to  be  inadmissible  ?  Why  should  they  wish  to  make  proselytes  by  a  kind 
of  evidence,  which  would  work  by  compulsion,  and  would  take  away  man's 
free  will If  they  yield  to  Swedenborg's  authority  in  other  things,  why  not  in 
this?"— p.  144. 

We  have  here  the  most  distinct  intimation,  that  the  "followers"  of  Sweden- 
borg endeavor  to  support  the  truth  of  his  pretensions  by  miraculous  evidence 
and  a  grave  lecture  is  read  to  them  on  the  inconsistency  of  the  proceeding.  But 
where  has  this  been  done  ?  What  single  instance  can  you  cite  in  which  any 
defender  of  his  doctrhies  has  taken  any  other  ground  than  that  which  you  are 
pleased  to  attribute  to  myself T  know  not  one.  They  could  not  do  it  without 
doing  at  the  same  time  the  most  downright  violence  to  the  genius  of  the  system. 
That  they  refer  to  the  extraordinary  incidents  alluded  to — that  they  challenge  a 
refutation  of  the  facts — that  they  hold  them  as  offering  a  strong  colla.teral  con- 
firmation of  his  claim  —is  most  true.  But  that  they  ever  make  these  occurrences 
prominent  as  "  proofs  to  support  his  authority" — that  they  ever  hold  them  forth 
as  a  fundamental  ground  on  which  to  urge  belief — is  most  untrue.  They  deem 
it  the  glory  of  their  credence  that  it  can  freely  dispense  with  everything  of  the 
kind.  The  fabric  of  their  faith  can  stand  firm  with  the  aid  of  any  such  miracu- 
lous undershoreing.  As  nothing  more,  therefore,  is  requisite  on  this  head  than 
a  simple  negative  to  the  statement  of  fact,  I  bring  the  present  letter  to  a  close  with 
the  assurance  of  the  respectful  regards  of 

Yours,  &c. 

GEO.  BUSH. 

LETTER  VIIL 

Rev.  akd  Dear  Sir  : 

Your  fifth  and  last  Lecture  is  devoted  to  what  you  term  "  the  moral  code  of 
Swedenborg,"  implying,  however,  not  as  the  reader  might  suppose  from  the 
announcement,  the  consideration  of  any  general  ethical  system  which  you  regard 
him  as  teaching,  but  that  particular  department  merely  which  relates  "  to  the 
intercourse  of  the  sexes  in  particular  cases."  The  true  character  of  his  doctrines, 
viewed  under  any  aspect,  is  undoubtedly  a  fair  theme  of  inquiry,  but  it  is 
proper  that  the  reader  should  be  advised,  that  Swedenborg  delivers  no  moral 
code  separate  from  his  spiritnal  code.  He  treats  largely  indeed  of  life  in  its  vari- 
13 


194 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


ous  duties  and  relations,  but  simply  as  the  expression  of  internal  spiritual  prin- 
ciples, Avhether  of  goodness  and  truth,  or  their  opposites.  The  distinction  often 
made  in  other  systems  between  what  are  termed  credcnda  and  agenda — things  to 
be  believed  and  things  to  be  done — almost  wholly  disappears  in  the  doctrines  of 
the  New  Jerusalem.  Truth,  according  to  them,  is  addressed  to  the  love-prin- 
(ciple  as  much  as  to  the  understanding-principle,  and  is  therefore  as  much  to^be 
done  as  to  be  believed,  and  with  the  angels  of  the  highest  heavens,  Swedenborg 
informs  us  that  truth  is  never  a  matter  of  reasoning,  or  even  of  conversation,  but 
^always  oi practice What  you  term  therefore  "  the  moral  principles  of  his  writ- 
fings"  are  in  fact  no  other  than  the  spiritual  principles  flowing  from  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  Divine  and  human  nature,  and  which  characterise  alike  every  portion 
of  his  teachings  and  disclosures.  No  one  part  of  them  can  be  justly  regarded  as 
embodying  a  "  moral  code"  more  than  any  other.  By  elevatipg  the  conjugal  re- 
lation, for  instance,  as  he  does,  into  the  very  highest  form  of  religious  affection, 
making  its  fundamental  principle  essentially  the  same  with  that  which  effects  con- 
junction with  the  Lord  himself,  he  must  necessarily  treat  its  opposite,  not  only 
as  the  breach  of  a  moral  institute  established  by  divine  authority  among  men, 
but  as  a  violence  done  to  the  very  inmost  life  and  soul  of  celestial  bliss.  It  is,  in 
fact,  impossible  to  conceive  anything  of  higher  sanctity  in  matters  of  faith,  than 
what  Swedenborg  affirms  of  the  actings  of  life  in  its  various  spheres  of  operation, 
for  the  life  is  as  the  love,  and  the  love  is  the  ground-element  in  all  the  relations 
which  man  sustains  to  his  Maker. 

The  subject  which  now  comes  under  discussion  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the 
greatest  importance  in  its  bearings  on  the  general  estimate  formed  of  the  system, 
which  has  probably  suffered  more  from  impressions  derived  from  this  source 
than  from  those  originating  in  any  other.  It  is  a  very  easy  matter,  as  experience 
has  shown,  by  overlooking  or  suppressing  the  general  scope  of  the  work  which 
especially  treats  of  this  theme,  and  by  disregardmg  the  various  qualifications, 
the  nice  discriminations,  and  the  solicitous  cautions,  which  accompany  his 
teachings  on  this  head,  to  present  them  under  an  aspect  odious  and  shocking  in 
the  highest  degree ;  and  on  the  same  principle  the  Bible  itself  might  be  made 
out  to  be  one  of  the  most  immoral  books  in  existence.  Nothing,  however,  is 
plainer  than  that  every  man  is  entitled  to  the  fairest  exhibition  of  his  real  senti- 
ments on  any  subject- -especially  when  those  sentiments  may  be  likely,  on  a 
superficial  survey,  to  subject  him  to  censure,  or  to  mar  the  effect  of  other  incul- 
cations to  which  no  exceptions  are  taken.  The  claim,  in  such  cases,  to  the  most 
rigid  justice  would  seem  to  be  imperative  in  proportion  to  the  evidence  afforded 
of  an  otherwise  blameless  character,  of  a  devout  spirit,  of  an  upright  aim,  and 
of  a  dominant  salutary  tendency  in  the  general  vein  of  a  man's  writings.  If  he  is 
one  whose  private  and  public  life  has  been  beyond  reproach — whose  grand  ob- 
ject has  been,  as  far  as  the  testimony  of  his  friends  and  the  spirit  of  his  works 
can  attest,  to  promote  the  interests  of  solid  virtue,  to  exalt  the  "  blessed  and  only 
Potentate"  in  the  universal  esteem  of  mankind,  to  lead  all  classes  and  degrees  of 
his  fellow-men  to  prefer  the  glories  and  bliss  of  another  life  to  the  vain  phantoms 
of  the  present  world,  and  to  display  before  them  the  most  constraining  motives 
to  the  pursuit,  then  it  is  obviously  due,  not  only  to  the  personal  character  of 
such  a  man,  but  to  the  most  sacred  claims  of  Truth  and  Charity,  represented  in 
him,  that  a  peculiar  tenderness  shall  be  evinced  towards  his  reputation,  and  that 


7^  ^'^  , 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

no  sinister  impression  shall  be  taken  up  respecting  himself  or  his  doctrines  but 
upon  the  most  ample  grounds.  If  any  imputations  are  cast  upon  his  t^chings. 
let  him  be  heard  to  the  fullest  extent  in  his  own  defence;  let  the  most  pncient 
audience  be  given  to  the  statement  which  he  makes  of  the  elemental  growula  and'* 
reasons  of  every  decision;  and  freely  accord  to  him  the  advantage  of  every 
sound  distinction,  of  every  just  limitation,  of  every  prudent  reserve,  of  every 
wholesome  admonition,  with  which  he  would  surround,  and  guard,  and  sanction 
his  positions.  All  this  is  the  dictate  of  that  common  equity  to  which  no  Chris- 
tian mind  can  be  insensible,  and  before  a  tribunal  constituted  of  those  with 
whom  such  considerations  shall  weigh,  the  adherents  of  Swedenborg  are  per- 
fectly willing  that  his  doctrines  of  Conjugial  and  Scortatory  love  should  be  cited.' 
They  regret  to  say,  that,  out  of  the  bounds  of  the  Neiv^  Church,  such  a  tribunal 
they  have  not  yet  been  so  happy  as  to  find,  nor  are  thpy  by  any  means  sanguine  of 
being  more  fortunate  in  time  to  come.  Still  they  are  prompted  by  the  duty  of 
expounding  and  the  hope  of  vindicating  the  doctrines  of  their  teacher  on  this  as 
well  as  all  other  points,  and  if  they  are  discarded  and  denounced,  it  shall  not  be 
our  fault  if  this  is  done  itpon  a  false  and  mistaken  view  of  their  true  character. 

And  let  me  here  remark,  in  the  outset,  that  some  consideration  is  obviously 
due  to  the  state  of  mind  in  which  this  feature  of  Swedenborg's  system  has  been 
received  by  the  great  mass  of  those  who  adopt  it.  In  view  of  the  revolting 
nature  of  the  principles  set  forth  in  their  prima  facie  character,  or  as  usually 
presented  by  opponents,  it  can  scarcely  be  conceived  that  they  should  be  insen- 
sible to  the  shock  which  they  are  calculated  to  give  to  all  those  settled  precon- 
ceptions which  they  wou!d  naturally  entertain  on  this  department  of  the  rigid 
morale  of  the  Gospel.  The  individuals  who  have,  one  after  another,  yielded 
theur  assent  to  the  claims  of  Swedenborg,  have  been  mostly  from  among  the 
members  of  what  are  termed  evangelical  churches,  and  who  cannot  fairly  be 
supposed  to  have  adopted  a  more  lax  standard  of  morals  on  this  subject  than 
the  majority  of  their  brethren.  What  reason  then  is  there  to  believe  that  they 
should  fail  to  be  equally  outraged  and  scandalized  by  the  naked  assertion  that 
Swedenborg  allows  the  "keeping  a  mistress  and  a  concubine"  Tvith  the  mass  of 
the  Christian  community  ?  How  were  it  possible  that  they  should  be  blind  to 
the  absolute  atrocity  of  the  doctrines  charged  upon  Swedenborg  on  this  subject, 
provided  the  charge  were  true Is  not  the  very  supposition  a  virtual  reflection 
of  the  gravest  character  either  upon  tlieir  understandings  or  their  moral  princi- 
ples Does  it  not  impeach  them  of  a  mental  weakness  transcending  belief,  or 
of  a  moral  corruption  more  to  be  detested  than  deplored  .'  Yet  here  is  the  obvi- 
ous fact,  that  these  persons  have  actually  embraced  the  system  as  a  whole,  and 
that  too  in  full  view  of  all  the  alleged  abominations  on  this  score  which  it  is  said 
to  involve.  We  have  therefore  a  problem  to  be  solved.  How  is  this  admis- 
sion of  the  system  to  be  explained  consistently  with  a  charitable  construction 
as  to  the  mental  and  moral  state  of  its  subjects  How  have  they  been  able  to 
overcome,  to  their  own  satisfaction,  the  force  of  objections  which  appear  so 
formidable  to  others — objections  which  they  must  have  felt  in  all  their  weight  ? 
To  say  that  they  have  been  strongly  drawn  to  the  doctrines  by  certain  of  their 
attractive  features,  and  that,  blinded  by  favoritism,  they  are  morally  unable  to 
perceive  the  enormities  in  question,  is  to  impute  to  them  the  grossest  mental 
unbecility — a  charge  as  unworthy  the  charity  of  those  who  make  it,  as  it  is  re- 


196 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


volting  to  tlie  consciousness  of  those  against  whom  it  is  brought.  Some  other 
solution  is  imperatively  called  for,  and,  I  am  happy  to  say,  can  easily  be  given. 
The  process  of  conviction  has  been  with  them  entirely  rational  and  logical,  and 
^eir  conscious  experience  will  generally  respond  to  their  accuracy  of  the  ensu- 
ing description  of  it. 

(1.)  On  re  volving  the  pages  of  Swedenborg  and  pondering  the  general  import  of 
his  revelations,  they  were  compelled  to  the  belief,  from  their  intrinsic  character, 
that  they  were  of  God.  They  became  satisfied  in  their  own  minds  that  nothing 
short  of  a  supernatural  opening  of  his  spiritual  senses  could  have  enabled  him 
to  make  those  astonishing  disclosures  of  the  interior  nature  of  man,  and  of  the 
spiritual  world,  which  everywhere  abound  in  his  writings,  and  which  they  felt 
to  be  so  perfectly  in  accordance  with  the  higher  oracles  of  their  own  reason. 
But  this  conviction  they  sa\-r  could  not  stand  for  a  moment  by  the  side  of  the 
suggestion,  that  the  subject  of  a  divine  illumination — the  selected  instrument  of 
a  message  of  truth  to  the  world — should,  at  the  same  time,  be  left  so  far  to  the 
falsities  of  his  own  mind,  as  to  be  allowed  to  give  forth  to  his  fellow-man,  under 
the  alleged  impulse  of  the  Deity,  a  code  of  moral  conduct  on  a  particular  subject, 
founded  upon  the  most  erroneous  principles,  and  tending  to  work  incalculable 
mischief  to  the  best  interests  of  society.  I'ney  could  not  conceive  the  possibility 
that  a  messenger  of  Jehovah  should  be  permiued  to  convert  himself  into  a  min- 
ister of  sm,  and  under  the  very  plea  of  elevating  the  law  of  the  sexual  relation 
to  a  pitch  of  angelic  purity,  pander  to  the  vilest  coiruptions  of  the  human  heart, 
open  the  floodgates  of  the  foulest  iniquity,  and  eventually  degrade  man  to  a  con- 
dition below  that  "  in  which  God  had  created  him  ot  to  which  sin  had  sunk 
him."  Could  such  sweet  and  bitter  waters  proceed  from  the  same  fountain ' 
Just  in  proportion,  then,  to  the  strength  of  the  evidence  in  favor  of  the  divine 
origin  of  his  doctrines  is  the  fulness  of  their  assurance  that  no  part  of  them  can 
be,  when  rightly  understood  and  estimated,  of  the  character  usually  attributed  to  the 
"  Scortatory  Love."  The  supposition  instantly  confounds  all  their  best  ideas  of 
the  counsels  of  Infinite  Wisdom.  That  you  felt  yourself  the  pressure  of  the  prob- 
lem on  this  head  is  evident  from  the  drift  of  the  following  paragraph. 

"Here  in  regard  to  the  particular  subject  referred  to,  we  meet  with  painful 
disclosures — disclosures  which  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  with  tiie  justness  and 
purity  of  his  general  remarks  on  conjugal  aflection  and  the  conjugal  state.  Who 
can  account  for  some  thinj^s  which  he  has  written  on  this  point,  without  sup- 
posing, what  the  Apostle  speaks  of  as  sometimes  taking  place,  that  Satan  trans- 
formed himself  into  an  angel  of  light,  and  that  our  author,  amidst  the  throng  of 
angelic  beings  that  surrounded  him,  was  sometimes  so  far  oil  his  guard,  or  so 
confused,  that  he  actually  mistook  the  influxes  of  evil  spirits  for  those  of  good 
spirits  ?  And  we  are  sure  that  those  infernal  beings,  who  are  enemies  to  all  that 
is  pine  and  just  and  of  good  report,  will  be  able  very  easily  to  dispose  of  all  the 
high  and  deep  things,  and  all  the  right  things,  which  Swedenborg  has  taught 
respecting  conjugal  love,  if  men  can  only  have  the  license  which  he  gives  for 
the  indulgence  of  their  passions  in  other  ways." — p.  148. 

I  say  nothing  at  present  of  the  solution  you  propose  by  wliich  to  account  for  the 
apparent  inconsistency  between  the  general  vein  of  his  sentiments  on  the  subject 
of  conjugal  love  and  that  which  is  evinced  on  the  particular  topic  we  are  now  con- 
sidering. You  may  ascribe  it,  if  you  please,  to  the  delusive  agency  of  evil  spirits  ; 
but  the  pointwhich  I  would  especially  urge  is,  the  fact  of  such  an  apparent  incon- 
gruity as  I  have  dwelt  upon,  and  the  fact  too  that  his  "  followers"  could  not  but 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


197 


have  been  equally  aware  of  it,  and  must  therefore  have  had  some  mode  of  ex- 
plaining it  to  their  ovvn  satisfaction.  Whether  this  wonid  be  satisfactory  to  you, 
is  another  question.  But  I  strenuously  insist  that  the  most  latent  implication, 
that  here  is  a  formidable  objection  meeting  us  on  the  very  threshold  of  the  sys- 
tem which  has  been  overlooked  or  disregarded  by  his  friends,  is  the  height  of  in- 
iustice.  Such  an  imjilication  is  undoubtedly  conveyed  in  the  entire  absence  of 
■all  allusion  to  any  reasonings  or  apologies  they  may  have  offered,  or  could  be 
supposed  to  ofler,  in  behalf  of  tlieir  faith,  as  if  nothing  more  were  necessary  to 
satisfy  the  demands  of  truth  than  the  naked  statement  of  the  objection. 

(2.)  Their  conclusion  on  this  head  was  vastly  strengthened  by  what  they  actu- 
ally found  to  be  the  prevailing  tone  and  spirit  of  his  writings.  They  know  not 
how  to  conceive  anything  on  this  head  more  pure,  more  sacred,  more  holy, 
than  the  vein  which  pervades  the  entire  mass  of  his  voluminous  expositions  of^ 
Scripture,  and  his  other  theological  works.  Referring  the  essence  of  all  tru^;, 
religion  to  the  actings  of  Divine  love  in  the  soul  of  man,  he  is  perpetually  aim- 
ing to  im[i]-oss  iqDou  him  the  indispensable  necessity  of  putting  away  every  evil' 
of  heart  and  life  which  prevents  the  fullest  conjunction  with  the  Lord  as  the  only 
source  of  true  blessedness,  as  the  only  preparation  for  heaven,  as  the  only  mode 
of  fulfilling  the  great  ends  of  human  destiny.  The  character  formed  under  the ' 
genuine  influence  of  his  doctrines  cannot  be  otherwise  than  pure  and  heavenly 
in  an  eminent  degree,  for  the  love  of  God  cannot  subsist  apart  from  the  love 
of  the  neighbor,  and  the  love  of  the  neighbor  must  necessarily  lay  an  ever- 
lasting interdict  upon  any  single  act  or  any  course  of  conduct  that  is  at  war 
with  his  truest  and  highest  good.  And  yet  if  the  representations  often  made  by^ 
his  opponents  are  well  founded,  Swedenborg  not  only  sanctions,  but  expressly 
inculcates,  principles  diametrically  opposite  to  all  neighborly  love,  and  calcu- 
lated to  poison  the  fountains  of  domestic  peace  and  purity,  and  to  pour  a  deluge 
of  abominations  over  the  bosom  of  society  !  Can  this  be  possible How  is  the 
astounding  paradox  to  be  explained  What  is  the  solution  of  this  huge  incon- 
sistency What  conceivable  motive  can  be  assigned  for  thus  zealously  building 
np  with  one  hand,  and  ruthlessly  throwing  down  with  the  other  ?  Was  he  inca- 
pable of  perceiving  that  all  the  lessons  of  all  the  angels,  on  the  demands  of  a  holy 
life,  would  be  utterly  imllified,  and  become  a  solemn  mockery,  if  wound  up  with 
a  grave  license  to  give  loose  to  the  promptings  of  unbridled  lust,  only  with  the 
reserve  of  certain  conditions  which  would  be  a  mere  spider's  web  before  the 
sophistry  of  rampant  appetite  Was  not  Swedenborg  in  possession  of  common 
sense  ?  Had  not  the  ordinary  principles  which  govern  men  in  the  adaptation  of 
means  to  ends  a  place  in  his  mind  ?  Was  he  not  prompted  by  rational  motives  ? 
If  he  were,  what  possible  end  could  he  have  proposed  to  himself,  in  the  labors 
of  a  long  and  virtuous  life,  directed  supremely  to  the  moral  improvement  of  the 
race,  and  under  the  full  faith  of  a  divine  commission,  while  yet  in  a  single  treatise 
of  90  pages  he  completely  stultifies  himself,  and  virtually  renders  void  the  salu- 
tary effect  of  scores  of  volumes  of  the  most  elaborate  morality  replete  with  the 
professed  Avisdom  of  angels  ?  Who  does  not  see  that  here  is  a  solecism  that 
staggers  all  belief?  Vv^ho  that  is  acquainted  with  the  tenor  of  his  writings  will 
for  one  moment  admit  that  he  ever  could  have  penned  what  he  has,  if,  at  the 
same  time,  the  state  of  his  mind  had  been  such  as  to  originate  so  corrupt  a  sys- 
tem of  sexual  ethics  as  his  opponents  charge  upon  him  .'   It  is  utterly  in  vain  to 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


slur  over  this  stupendous  anomaly  with  the  idle  intimation  of  a  brain  disordered 
by  excess  of  stitdy  on  mystical  themes,  or  of  a  mind  natively  given  to  dreaming 
.  rhapsodies.  Such  a  solution  denies  the  asserted  intrinsic  character  of  his  other 
.works,  and  such  a  denial  we  know  can  proceed  only  from  an  ignorance  which 
in  the  eye  of  right  reason  utterly  incapacitates  a  man  from  making  it.  We  appeal 
to  the  only  true  standard  of  judgment — the  writings  themselves.  We  challenge 
the  production  of  a  single  sentence  from  his  voluminious  composures  on  every 
other  subject  of  doctrine  and  dtity  which  goes  to  relax  the  bonds  of  wholesome 
restraint  on  the  passions,  or  to  weaken  the  sentiments  of  the  most  rigid  virtue. 
If  our  position  on  this  pohit  be  unassailable,  then  we  demand  that  some  rational 
solution  be  given  of  the  phenomenon  of  a  strain  of  teaching  so  wholly  at  war 
with  everything  else  that  has  proceeded  from  his  pen,  and  so  outrageously  ab- 
horrent to  every  better  feeling  of  the  Christian  bosom.  We  urge  this  demand  as 
founded  upon  an  obligation  that  presses  universally  and  equally  upon  all  good 
men.  The  claims  of  Truth  are  of  no  restricted  application.  If  Emanuel  Swe- 
denborg,  in  the  great  body  of  his  writings,  has  but  reasserted  the  eternal  Truth 
of  Jehovah,  it  is  vain  to  suppose  that  those  v/ho  are  termed  his  "  followers"  are 
alone  concerned  in  them,  or  that  it  devolves  upon  them  only  to  attempt  to  recon- 
cile their  apparent  inconsistency  with  other  truths  or  principles  regarded  as  set- 
tled beyond  debate.  If,  as  I  affirm  with  all  assurance,  this  wonderful  man,  in 
the  general  drift  of  his  doctrines  and  developments,  has  spoken  to  the  world 
what  God,  by  inward  teaching,  spake  to  him — if,  as  I  again  affirm,  you  are  una- 
ble to  invalidate  the  essential  verity  or  to  gainsay  tlie  ineflable  importance  of 
what  he  has  uttered — then  I  appeal,  reverend  sir,  unhesitatingly  to  the  tribunal 
of  your  own  bosom,  and  call  upon  you  to  make  common  cause  with  me  in 
clearing  up  every  apparent  discrepancy  between  what  he  has  taught,  and  what 
he  ought  to  have  taught.  I  have  no  deeper  concern  in  this  matter  than  you  have. 
Swedenborg  has  said  nothing  to  me  which  he  has  not  said  to  you.  From  the 
bonds  of  this  obligation  you  C£in  be  freed  only  by  the  most  clear  and  intelligent 
assurance  of  the  fallacy  and  insanity  of  his  claims  to  a  divine  mission ;  and  this 
assurance  can  never  be  reached  but  by  means  of  a  thorough  and  searching  exa- 
mination into  the  real  character.of  these  claims.  Of  the  result  of  sucli  an  examina- 
tion, even  in  your  own  case,  1  have  no  fear.  In  nothing  is  my  confide\jce  stronger 
than  in  the  conviction,  that  no  CEindid  and  enlightened  mind  can  really  and  truly 
^understand  the  system,  and  yet  reject  it.  The  grand  difficulty  is  in  persuading 
I'men  to  bestow  upon  it  sufficient  attention  to  enable  them  to  master  its  principles, 
(which,  unless  they  do,  they  will  reject  the  delaih  as  a  matter  of  course. 
*  (3.)  In  addition  to  the  foregoing  evidence  of  ?i presumptive  kind,  the  practical  ef- 
fect actually  wrought  upon  their  own  minds  by  Swedenborg's  presentation  both 
of  the  nature  and  consequences  of  all  illicit  sexual  indulgence  confirmed  amazing- 
ly their  faith  in  its  truth.  It  must  indeed  be  admitted  that  this  effect  can  only  be  ex- 
pected to  follow  where  the  conviction  has  taken  root  that  the  law  of  connection 
between  character  and  desthiy  as  developed  by  Swedenborg  is  indeed  founded  in 
the  very  elements  of  our  nature.  But  of  this  they  usually  become  assured  before 
entering  upon  the  close  study  of  the  Conjugial  and  Scortatory  doctrines.  When 
they  do  this,  with  the  requisite  pre-acquaintance  with  the  system,  it  is  impossible 
for  language  to  describe  the  horrifying  effect  produced  upon  them  by  the  fearful 
unveiling  of  the  doom  that  awaits  the  transgressor  in  the  life  beyond  death.  If 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


199 


they  had  ever  wavered  for  a  moment  before,  they  are  fixed  beyond  deliberation 
now.  So  profound  is  the  philosophy  of  sex  as  unfolded  in  those  wondrous  pages 
— so  clear  is  the  discovery  of  the  celestial  origin  and  the  pre-eminent  sanctity  of 
the  conjugal  principle — that  they  see  beyond  question  that  everything  opposed 
to  it  must  of  necessity  proceed  from  hell  as  its  source  and  lead  to  hell  as  its  issue. 
Its  very  soul  and  essence  and  acting  is  all  hellish.  And  with  their  general  views 
of  the  relation  between  the  present  and  the  future  life  can  they  but  be  keenly 
alive  to  the  practical  impression  resuhing  from  such  developments  as  lie  makes 
of  the  consequences  As  the  true  measure  of  every  evil  is  the  preciousness  of 
the  good  to  which  it  stands  opposed,  the  bare  thought  of  doing  violence  to  a 
principle  which  lies  so  near  to  the  very  life  of  the  heavenly  beatitudes  strikes 
an  ineffable  awe  upon  their  spirits,  and  makes  them  shudder  as  over  the  opened 
pit  of  perdition  when  tempted  to  parley  with  passion. 

In  all  this,  I  beg  you  to  be  assured,  I  am  merely  exhibiting  what  will  be  uni- 
versally affirmed,  by  the  adherents  of  Swedenborg,  to  be  the  native  and  legiti- 
mate effect  of  his  teachings  on  the  point  in  question.  It  is  impossible  that  it 
should  be  otherwise,  if  they  really  believe  what  they  profess  to  believe  respecting 
the  condition  of  human  spirits  in  the  other  life,  as  the  inevitable  result  of  char- 
acter and  conduct  in  the  present  life.  If  you  are  at  a  loss  to  conceive  it,  it  can 
only  be  from  a  failure  to  apprehend,  as  they  do,  the  overwhelming  evidence  of 
the  truth  of  these  revelations  viewed  as  a  whole. 

Such  I  believe  to  be,  in  the  main,  a  correct  exhibition  of  the  process  through 
which  all  those  have  passed  who  now  stand  forth  as  the  avowed  receivers  of 
what  we  venture  to  denominate  the  Heavenly  Doctrines  proclaimed  by  Sweden- 
borg, and  who  assent  as  cordially  to  what  he  has  taught  on  this  particular  topic, 
as  to  any  other  part  of  the  system.  How  far  the  considerations  cited  are  enti- 
tled to  weigh,  I  leave  it  to  the  candid  censor  to  judge.  To  me  they  appear  to 
possess  great  intrinsic  weight.  I  am  wholly  unwilling  to  admit  tjie  virtual  im- 
plication, that  the  members  of  the  New  Church  are  incompetent  to  feel  the  force 
of  the  objections  urged,  or  that  they  have  not  been  governed  by  adequate  rea- 
sons in  obviating  them  to  their  own  minds.  These  reasons  I  have  as  yet  how- 
ever but  very  partially  presented,  nor  can  I  do  anything  like  justice  to  the  sub- 
ject without  entering  into  a  more  detailed  examination  of  those  features  of  the 
system  to  which  exceptions  are  taken.  This  is  fully  warranted  by  the  import- 
ance of  the  theme. 

And  let  me  here  remark  in  the  outset,  that  I  wholly  deny  and  repudiate  the 
charge  constructively  made  in  the  inuendos  respecting  the  immodesty  and  in-, 
decency  of  Swedenborg's  style  in  treating  of  this  subject.  From  some  sentences 
in  your  own  and  Dr.  Pond's  work  the  uninstructed  reader  would  infer,  that  the 
treatise  was  marked  by  a  baldness  and  gros.sness  of  language  outrageously  re- 
volting to  the  refined  and  virtuous  ear.  Nothing  can  be  farther  from  the  truth. 
Indeed  I  cannot  well  conceive  the  possibility  of  a  more  faultless  mode  of  treat- 
ing the  subject  than  Swedenborg  has  evinced.  Thei'e  is  a  delicacy  of  tact — a 
studied  chasteness  of  phrase — a  felicity  of  allusion  where  plainness  of  speech 
would  be  offensive — that  I  do  not  believe  is  paralleled  by  any  other  writer.  The 
subject  itself  is  undoubtedly  of  a  peculiar  character,  but  if  it  is  to  be  treated  at  all, 
I  question  if  it  could  be  done  in  a  more  unexceptionable  manner  than  it  is  done 
in  the  work  we  are  now  considering.    And  this  probably  will  be  after  all  re- 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


garded  as  the  "  head  and  front  of  his  olTending,"  tliat  he  has  said  anything  what- 
^   ever  on  the  theme.    But  why  shall  this  be  a  tabooedf suhiect  in  a  scheme  of  theol- 
ogy  and  morality  so  comprehensive  as  that  of  Swedenborg Does  it  not  in- 
■   volve  questions  of  the  most  momentous  bearings  upon  the  interests  of  religion 
and  sound  morals  ?    Is  there  any  form  of  evil  more  rife  in  all  communities  than 
those  which  grow  out  of  the  relation  of  the  sexes Is  not  a  fearful  lesson  on 
this  subject  taught  to  every  man  who  walks  the  streets  of  our  great  cities  afler 
■.  night-fall And  is  not  a  light  estimate  of  the  true  nature  and  ends  of  the  conju- 
gal principle  evermore  at  the  bottom  of  these  abominations  ?    How  shall  the 
.  -    root  of  the  evil  be  reached  but  by  an  impressive  display  of  the  pre-eminent  and 
'   inviolable  sanctity  of  the  relation  of  the  sexes  as  founded  upon  the  law  of  their 
'  creation Such  a  discovery  Swedenborg  has  made.    He  has  elevated  the  love 
^   of  man  and  woman  from  the  sensual  to  the  sjpiritual,  and  even  celestial,  degree  of 
;   affection,  and  brought  it  into  the  closest  affinity  with  the  principle  that  conjoins 
S  the  soul  to  the  Lord  himself.    He  has  clothed  it,  in  fine,  with  all  the  sacredness 
pertaining  to  the  highest  religious  actings  of  the  mind,  and  in  so  doing  has  pre- 
sented  a  standard  by  which  to  judge  of  the  moral  character  of  its  least  violation. 
4  And  is  not  this  the  true  method  of  procedure  .'    Is^jnot_the  conviction  of  sin 
wrought  by  the  knowledge  of  the  law"?    Is  there  any  mode  of  displaying  the 
true  character  of  evil  so  effectual  as  that  of  arraying  over  against  it  the  good  to 
which  it  is  opposed .'    Or,  on  the  other  hand,  can  the  claims  of  any  form  of  good 
^  be,  by  any  means,  so  powerfully  set  forth  as  by  contrastmg  it  with  its  opposite 
*  evil .'    Are  not  the  blessings  of  peace  most  loudly  proclaimed  by  the  horrors  of 
*">war — the  value  of  freedom  by  the  bitterness  of  bondage — the  advantages  of 
temperance  by  the  woes  of  ebriety — the  beauty  of  benevolence  by  the  deform- 
^  ity  of  selfishness — the  excellence  of  justice  by  the  foulness  of  wrong— and  so, 
vice  versa,  of  the  whole  catalogue Why  then  shall  not  the  Christian  moralist  be 
^  permitted  to  depict  the  hideousuess  of  lust  and  debauchery  by  contrasting  it  in 
"  ^  like  manner  with  the  superlative  loveliness  of  a  chaste  and  pure  and  well-ordered 
VI  intercourse  between  the  sexes  ?    Or  why,  on  the  other  hand,  shall  he^not  be  al- 
^  ^  lowed  to  commend  the  angelic  attributes  ofa  true  conjugal  love  by  exposing  the 
^  infernal  quality  and  infinite  mischiefs  of  all  scortatory  promptings This  is 
what  Swedenborg  has  done.    His  grand  aim  is  to  show  that  the  conjugal  prin- 
*  -  ciple  is  from  heaven  and  essentially  allied  to  its  highest  bliss,  while  everything 
t  opposed  to  it  is  from  the  pit  of  hell  and  fraught  with  its  direful  and  loathsome 
4   influxes.    Is  this  wrong?    Is  it  a  fair  ground  of  impeachment Has  the  theme 
no  claims  upon  the  profoundest  consideration  of  good  men     But  could  he  or 
i.  any  one  else  respond  to  those  claims  without  speaking  intelligibly  on  the  sub- 
'■^  ject.'    Is  it  not  a  mawkish  and  affected  sensibility  which,  under  the  plea  of  in- 
^  delicacy,  would  inhibit  thD  free  exposure  of  the  intrinsic  nature  and  the  baleful 
T  effects  of  licentious  indulgence  ?    Must  the  physician  stand  aloof  from  the  "  put- 
.  '  rifying  sore"  because  the  sight  of  it  is  disgusting,  or  because  the  removal  of  the 
A.  bandage  would  offend  any  other  sense  .'   If  Swedenborg  is  condemned  for  his 
\,  bold  and  explicit  utterances  on  this  subject,  let  it  be  shown  that  the  root  of  the 
^  evil  can  be  reached  in  any  other  way.    And  before  the  charge  of  grossness  of 
plirase  is  preferred,  let  it  be  shown  that  if  the  thing  is  to  be  treated  at  all  it  would 
be  possible  to  do  it  in  more  guarded  and  unexceptionable  language  than  he  has 
^'  employed.    This,  I  am  confident,  can  never  be  done,  and  I  therefore  unhesitat- 

-U  i\Uc.  U^a^t  c^^y^t         /•         '<^^  • 


■1.  c  t 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


201 


iiigly  affirm,  that  there  is  nolliing  more  objectionable  in  his  phraseology  than  in  the  sub- 
ject-matter itself,  and  that  this  is  pre-eminently  worthy  of  being  treated  distmctly 
and  emphatically  in  the  great  doctrines  of  faith  and  life.    I  am  compelled,  there- 
fore, to  regard  all  insinuations  about  a  revolting  baldness  and  indecency  in  his 
expressions — all  pretences  to  the  necessity  of  suppressing  his  own  ipsissima  verba 
— all  intimations  of  the  danger  of  defilement  by  coming  in  contact  with  his  dis-  , 
closures — as  a  positive  slander  and  defamation,  as  intended  to  create  an  odium  ■ 
for  which  there  is  no  sufficient  ground.   And  I  must  be  permitted  to  remind  thex . 
authors  of  such  intimations,  that  it  is  as  much  a  command  of  the  decalogueJ 
that  "thou  shalt not  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neighbor"  as  iL  is  that  "  thoiy 
sjialt  not  commit  adultery."    The  effect  of  all  verbal  exhibitions  of  this  subject  ^ 
is  generally  governed  by  the  state  of  mind  of  the  reader.    "  To  the  pure  aiy 
things  are  pure,"  but  to  the  prurient' imagination  all  things  are  defiled.  Evenj 
the  sanctity  of  holy  writ  wiUnot  prevent  some  minds  from  feeding  their) 
depraved  fancies   upon   the  images  suggested  by  the  language  employed^^J 
in  it.    How  much  more  then  in  the  case  of  a  merely  human  writer,  how-^' 
ever  pure  his  inward  thought,  and  however  free  from  any  prompting  but 
that  of  stern  fidelity  to  the  sense  of  duty  ?    If  the  parallel  do  not  degrade  the 
gravity  of  the  theme,  Swedenborg  is  entitled  to  say  in  the  words  of  one  of  ^ 
Shakespeare's  dramatis  persona: — "  an'  wrong  thinking  do  not  wrest  true  speak-  V 
ing^my  words  will  offend  nobody."    Why  is  not  the  same  charge  brought^ 
against  other  writers  who  have  treated  the  subject  of  sexual  morality  ?   Is  it 
not  because  they  have  for  the  most  part  been  silent  respecting  this  department 
of  it.'    And  yet  is  it  a  point  on  which  silence  is  to  be  commended?    If  not, 
let  those  who  are  constrained  to  speak  "  show  a  more  excellent  way"  of  speak- 
ing than  Swedenborg  has  evinced.    Let  them  not  take  the  credit  of  shunning  his 
alleged  faults,  while  those  very  faults  arose  from  the  discharge  of  a  duty  which 
they  forbear  to  perform. 

The  claims  of  justice  and  truth  compel  me  to  advert  to  another  feature  of  your 
strictures  on  this  head.  You  say  that  you  feel  required  to  exhibit  the  views  of 
Swedenborg  with  some  particularity ;  and  that  in  doing  this  you  shall  exhibit 
his  own  language,  except  when  decency  absolutely  forbids  it  (decency  does  not 
forbid  it  at  all).  You  then  observe, — "  The  citations  are  made  from  his  w^ork  on 
Scortator^  Love. " 

Now  as  you  could  not  but  have  known  that  there  is  no  separate  work  of  his 
bearing  this  title — that  it  is  an  integral  part  of  the  general  treatise  on  "  Conjugial 
Love" — allow  me  to  ask,  whether  you  could  have  felt  yourself  absolved,  in  fair- 
ness, from  giving  to  your  reader  some  intimation  of  this  fact Were  you  at 
liberty,  in  foro  conscientiae,  to  leave  him  in  total  ignorance  of  the  nature,  design, 
and  relations  of  that  treatise,  and  to  deprive  the  author  of  the  advantage  that 
might  accrue  from  a  clear  and  accurate  understanding  of  the  object  he- Lad  in 
view  in  writing  it  ?  Does  this  procedure  savor  more  of  the  frankness  and  can- 
dor of  a  Christian  censor,  or  of  the  sinister  spirit  of  an  unscrupulous  opponent, 
Avho  would  overwhelm  with  obloquy  what  he  regards  with  aversion  Suppose 
the  case  made  your  own— should  you  not  protest  against  the  manifest  unfair- 
ness of  such  a  garbled  and  distorted  exhibition  of  your  views  as  would  be 
made  by  violently  dislocating  one  part  of  your  argument  from  another,  and  sup- 
pressing a  statement  absolutely  necessary  to  put  the  reader  in  full  possession  of 

^  ^  '^  ^  '  -^'^^  ^-'^'^■t.^y.  c  Cx^y  AjK>r^Hf  aCco  C%c»lA^»^'' 

Cv-w  <i,W  I  .  vV. 


202 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


your  scope  ?  Yet  this  is  precisely  the  effect  of  dealing  as  you  and  others  have 
done  with  Swedenborg's  doctrine  on  the  relation  of  the  sexes.  That  you  have 
intended  to  do  him  injustice,  I  do  not  assert ;  but  still  injustice  has  been  done, 
and  this  makes  it  necessary  for  me  to  endeavor  to  re-poise  the  scales  by  going 
into  a  somewhat  fuller  display  of  his  genuine  teachmgs  than  would  otherwise  be 
called  for._ 

The  general  title  of  the  work  in  question  is — "The  Delights  of  Wisdom  con- 
cerning Conjugial  Love  :  after  which  follow  the  Pleasures  of  Insanity  concerning 
Scortatory  Love.^'*  It  is  palpably  one  work  treating  its  main  subject  under  two  dis- 
tinct heads,  just  as  a  writer  might  indite  a  treatise  on  Temporance  and  divide  it 
into  two  branches,  the  one  treating  of  the  blessmgs  of  Temperance,  and  the 
other  of  the  miseries  of  Intemperance.  You  can  easily  perceive  that  if  the 
author,  in  the  course  of  his  discussion,  should  perchance  have  intimated  that 
when  a  man  would  drink,  at  all  events,  if  no  mducement  he  could  hold  out 
would  persuade  him  to  abandon  his  cups  and  become  a  sober  man,  it  were 
better  that  he  should  drink  wine  than  brandy — nothing  could  be  more  unjust  in 
an  opponent  than  on  this  ground  to  represent  the  writer  as  an  advocate  for  the 
use  of  intoxicating  liquors,  and  in  order  to  prove  it  should  quote  the  latter  part 
of  his  work  without  alluding  to  the  former,  or  giving  the  reader  any  intimation 
of  its  existence.  It  may  indeed  be  a  question  in  casuistry  how  far  it  were  proper 
in  such  cases  even  to  speak  of  anything  short  of  total  abstinence,  but  it  is  evi- 
dently calumnious,  on  this  ground  alone,  to  charge  a  writer  with  abetting  the 
very  vice  which  it  is  the  grand  object  of  his  work  to  arrest,  and  that  mainly  by 
a  powerful  exhibition  of  the  opposite  virtue.  Yet  this  is  a  perfect  parallel  to  the 
measure  which  has  been  dealt  out  to  Swedenborg  in  view  of  his  enunciations 
on  the  subject  of  Scortatory, love. 

But  to  return  to  the  book.  The  edition  now  lying  before  me  (Lond.  1841)  con- 
sists of  430  pages,  of  which  344  are  devoted  to  Conjugial  Love,  and  the  remain- 
der, 86  pages,  to  Scortatory  Love.f  The  latter  part,  therefore,  bears  comparatively 
a  small  proportion  to  the  former,  yet  it  is  an  integral  and  inseparable  portion  of 
it,  and  this  fact  ought  always  to  be  made  known  to  those  who  are  appealed  to 
by  any  statements  or  remonstrances  in  regard  to  it,  and  whose  prejudices  it  is 
intended  to  enlist  against  it.  The  truth  gains  nothing  in  the  end  by  such  palpa- 
ble infractions  of  its  own  laws,  and  justice  outraged  by  controversial  tricks  will 
be  sure  to  make  heavy  reprisals  at  last.  It  would  have  given  me  pleasure  could 
I  have  managed  this  part  of  my  reply  without  reminding  you  of  so  injurious 
an  omission  in  your  statements  and  strictures  on  this  head. 

As  I  have  already  remarked,  the  scope  of  the  entire  treatise  is  to  heighten  to 
the  utmost  our  estimate  of  the  nature  and  ends  of  the  marriage  relation  by  a 
most  elaborate  development  of  the  interior  principles  on  which  it  rests.  It  is 
for  the  most  irart  occujjied  with  a  profound  exposition  of  the  laws  which  govern 
the  union  of  the  sexes.  It  sets  the  divine  institution  of  marriage  in  its  true  light. 
It  lays  it  down  as  a  fundamental  principle,  that  love  truly  conjugial,  or  the 


•  "  Delitia  Sapientiri!  de  Amore  Conjugiali ;  post  quas  sequnntur  Voluptates  InsaniJB 
de  Amore  Scortatorio." 

t  For  the  reason  of  the  use  of  the  term  "  conjugial,"  instead  of  "  conjugal,"  in  all 
that  Swedenborg  says  on  this  subject,  see  "  Swedenborg  Library,"  Nos.  12  &  13,  on 
"The  Conjugal  Relation  and  the  Distinction  of  Sei  in  Heaven." 


I 


-^'Cg-vv-v  fit  • 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


203 


chaste  love  subsisting  between  one  husband  and  one  wife,  originates  in  the  mar- 
riage or  conjnaction  of  good  and  truth ;  that  it  corresponds  to  the  marriage  of 
the  Lord  and  his  Church  ;  that  it  i.s  thus  love  celestial,  spiritual,  holy,  pure,  and 
clean,  in  a  pre-eminent  degree  ;  and  that  it  is  the  foundation  of  every  species  of 
heavenly  love  and  affection,  with  all  their  innumerable  felicities.  But  I  shall 
feel  at  liberty  to  demand  special  attention  to  his  own  language  in  propounding 
the  doctrines  which  he  has  given  forth  to  the  world  on  this  point.  It  is  proper 
•that  the  Christian  community  should  at  least  know  what  he  has  actually  ad- 
vanced in  his  writings  relative  to  the  general  subject  of  Conjugial  Love,  since 
the  soundness  of  his  doctrines  here  must  first  be  disproved  before  any  headway 
can  be  made  against  the  general  principles  embodied  in  the  Scortatory  Love.  As 
my  object  is  simply  to  exhibit  a  perfectly  faithful  view  of  what  Swedenborg 
has  taught,  not  in  one  place  or  one  work  only  on  this  subject,  I  shall  not  deeni 
it  necessary  to  draw  my  extracts  solely  from  the  single  volume  in  question. 

"  The  reason  why  none  can  be  principled  in  love  truly  conjugial  but  those 
who  receive  it  from  the  Lord,  that  is,  who  come  directly  to  him,  and  by  deriva- 
tion from  him  live  the  life  of  the  church,  is,  because  this  love,  considered  in  its 
origin  and  correspondence,  is  celestial,  spiritual,  holy,  pure,  and  clean,  above 
every  love  implanted  in  the  angels  of  heaven  and  the  men  of  the  church  ;  and 
these  its  distinguishing  characters  and  qualities  cannot  possibly  exist,  except 
with  those  who  are  conjoined  to  the  Lord,  and  by  him  are  consociated  with  the 
angels  of  heaven ;  for  these  shun  extra-conjugial  loves,  which  are  conjunctions 
with  others  than  their  own  proper  conjugial  partners,  as  they  would  shun  the 
loss  of  the  soul  and  the  lakes  of  hell ;  and  in  proportion  as  married  partners  shun 
such  conjunctions,  even  as  to  the  libidinous  desires  of  the  will  and  the  intentions 
thence  derived,  so  far  love  truly  conjugial  is  purified  with  them,  and  becomes 
successively  spiritual,  first  during  their  abode  on  earth,  and  afterwards  in 
heaven.  The  reason  vi'hy  none  can  be  principled  in  spiritual  conjugial  love,  but 
those  who  are  of  the  above  description  by  virtue  of  conjunction  with  the  Lord, 
is,  because  heaven  is  in  this  love  ;  and  the  natural  man,  whose  conjugial  love 
derive.*  its  pleasure  only  from  the  flesh,  cannot  approach  to  heaven,  nor  to  any 
angel,  no,  nor  to  any  man  principled  in  this  love,  it  being  the  foundation  love  of 
all  celestial  and  spiritual  loves." — C.  L.  71. 

"  That  marriage  is  heaven,  and  that  adultery  is  hell,  cannot  be  better  seen 
than  from  their  origin.  The  origin  of  love  truly  conjugial  is  the  love  of  the  Lord 
towards  the  church,  whence  the  Lord  is  called,  in  the  Word,  the  Bridegroom, 
and  Husband,  and  the  church  bride  and  wife  :  from  this  marriage  the  church  is 
a  church  in  general  and  in  particular;  the  church  in  particular  is  the  man  in 
whom  the  church  is:  hence  it  is  evident,  that  the  conjunction  of  the  Lord  with 
the  man  of  the  church  is  the  very  origin  of  love  truly  conjugial.  But  how  that 
conjunction  can  be  the  origin  shall  also  be  explained :  the  conjunction  of  the 
Lord  with  the  man  of  the  church  is  the  conjunction  of  good  and  truth  ;  from  the 
Lord  is  good,  and  with  man  is  truth;  and  hence  is  the  conjunction  which  is 
called  the  heavenly  marriage,  from  which  marriage  exists  love  truly  conjugial 
between  two  married  partners,  who  are  in  such  conjianction  with  the  Lord : 
hence  it  is  first  evident,  that  love  truly  conjugial  is  from  the  Lord  alone,  and  with 
those  who  are  in  the  conjunction  of  good  and  truth  from  the  Lord :  inasmuch  as 
this  conjunction  is  reciprocal,  it  is  described  by  the  Lord,  that  '  They  are  in  Him 
and  He  in  them^  (John  xiv.  20).  This,  conjunction  or  this  marriage  was  thus  esta- 
blished from  creation :  the  man  [Dj'rj'^as  created  to  be  the  understanding  of  truth, 
and  the  woman  \_fmmina]  to  be  tUe  affection  of  good,  consequently  the  man  to 
be  truth  and  the  woman  good ;  when  the  understanding  of  truth,  which  is  with 
the  man,  makes  one  with  the  affection  of  good,  which  is  with  the  woman,  there 
is  a  conjunction  of  two  minds  into  one;  this  conjunction  is  the  spiritual  mar- 
riage, from  which  descends  conjugial  love  :  for  when  two  minds  are  conjoined  to 
be  as  one  mind,  there  is^between  them  love,  and  this  love,  which  is  the  love  of 


204 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


spiritual  mamage,  whilst  it  descends  into  the  body,  becomes  the  love  of  natural 
marriage.  That  this  is  the  case,  any  one  may,  if  he  be  willing,  clearly  perceive  : 
the  married  pair,  who  interiorly  as  to  their  minds  love  each  other  mutually  and 
interchangeably,  also  love  each  other  mutually  and  interchangeably  as  to  their 
bodies  :  it  is  well  known,  that  all  love  descends  into  the  body  from  the  affection 
of  the  mind,  and  that  without  that  origin  not  any  love  exists.  Now  inasmuch 
as  the  origin  of  conjugial  love  is  the  marriage  of  good  and  truth,  which  marriage 
in  its  essence  is  heaven,  it  is  manifest  that  the  origin  of  the  love  of  adultery  is 
the  marriage  of  evil  and  the  false  which  in  its  essence  is  hell.  The  reason  why 
heaven  is  marriage,  is,  because  all  who  are  in  the  heavens  are  in  the  marriage 
of  good  and  truth ;  and  the  reason  why  hell  is  adultery,  is,  because  all  who  are 
in  the  hells,  are  in  the  marriage  of  evil  and  the  false  :  hence  it  follows  of  conse- 
quence, that  marriage  and  adultery,  are  as  opposite  to  each  other,  as  heaven 
and  hell." — A.  E.  983. 

"  They  who  are  in  love  truly  conjugial,  after  death,  when  they  become  angels, 
return  into  youth  and  adolescenc^;  the  males,  however  worn  out  with  age,  be- 
come young  men ;  and  the  wives,  however  worn  out  with  age,  become  yotmg 
women ;  each  conjugial  partner  returns  into  the  flower  and  into  the  joys  of  the 
age  in  which  love  conjugial  begins  to  exalt  the  life  with  new  delights,  and  to  in- 
spire sportiveness  for  the  sake  of  prolification  :  into  this  state,  tirst  exteriorly, 
afterwards  more  and  more  interiorly  to  eternity,  comes  tlie  man  who  had  fled 
adulteries  as  sins,  and  was  inaugurated  by  the  Lord  into  conjugial  love  whilst  he 
_  lived  in  the  world.  Inasmuch  as  they  are  always  growing  young  more  interi- 
'orly,  it  follows  that  love  truly  conjugial  increases  and  enters  into  its  delights  and 
satisfactions,  which  were  provided  for  it  from  the  creation  of  the  world,  and 
which  are  the  delights  and  satisfactions  of  the  inmost  heaven  arising  from  the 
love  of  the  Lord  towards  heaven  and  the  church,  and  thence  from  the  love  of 
good  and  truth  between  each  other,  from  which  loves  is  derived  every  joy  in  the 
heavens.  The  reason  w-hy  man  thus  grows  young  in  heaven,  is,  because  he 
then  enters  into  the  marriage  of  good  and  truth,  and  there  is  in  good  an  effort  of 
continually  loving  truth,  and  in  truth  there  is  an  effort  of  continually  loving  good, 
and  then  the  wife  is  good  in  its  form,  and  the  man  is  truth  in  its  form  :  from  that 
eflFort  man  puts  off  all  the  severity,  sadness  and  dryness  appertaining  to  age,  and 
puts  on  the  liveliness,  gladness  and  freshness  of  youth,  from  which  the  effort 
lives  and  becomes  joy.  It  has  been  told  me  from  heaven,  that  they  have  then 
a  life  of  love,  which  cannot  otherwise  be  described,  than  as  being  the  life  of  joy 
itself."—^.  E.  1000. 

*'  The  chastity  of  marriage  exists  by  a  total  abdication  of  whoredoms  from 
A  PRINCIPLE  OF  RELIGION.  The  rcasou  is,  because  chastity  is  the  removal  of  un- 
chastity  ;  it  being  a  universal  law,  that  so  far  as  any  one  removes  evils,  so  far  a 
capacity  is  given  for  good  to  succeed  in  its  place ;  and  further,  so  far  as  evil  is 
hated,  so  far  good  is  loved;  and  also  vice  versa;  consequently,  so  far  as  whore- 
dom is  renounced,  so  far  the  chastity  of  marriage  enters.  That  conjugial  love 
is  purified  and  rectified  according  to  the  renunciation  of  whoredoms,  every  one 
sees  from  common  perception;  as  soon  as  it  is  mentioned  and  heard  :  thus  be- 
fore  confirmation:  but  as  all  have  not  common  perception,  it  is  of  importance 
that  the  subject  should  also  be  illustrated  in  the  way  of  proof  by  such  conside- 
rations as  may  tend  to  confirm  it.    These  considerations  are,  that  conjugial  love 

,'grows  cold  as  soon  as  it  is  divided,  and  this  coldness  causes  it  to  perish  ;  for  the 
heat  of  unchaste  love  extinguishes  it ;  as  two  opposite  heats  cannot  exist  to- 
gether, but  one  must  needs  reject  the  other,  and  deprive  it  of  its  potency.  When- 
ever therefore  the  heat  of  conjugial  love  removes  and  rejects  the  heat  of  scorta- 
tory  love,  conjugial  love  begins  to  acquire  a  pleasant  warmth,  and  from  a  sen- 
sation of  its  delights  to  bud  and  flourish,  like  an  orchard  and  garden  in  the  time 
of  spring ;  the  latter  from  the  vernal  temperament  of  light  and  heat  from  the  sun 
of  the  natural  world  :  but  the  former  from  the  vernal  temperament  of  light  and 

_^heat  from  the  sun  of  the  spiritual  world." — C.  L.  147. 

"  As  few  know  the  distinction  between  the  love  of  the  sex  and  conjugial  love, 
itmay  be  expedient  briefly  to  point  out  this  distinction.*  The  love  of  tire  sex  is  a 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


205 


love  directed  to  several,  and  contracted  with  several  of  the  sex;  whereas  conju- 
gial  love  is  only  directed  to  one,  and  contracted  with  one  of  the  sex.  Moreover, 
love  directed  to  several  and  contracted  with  several  is  a  natural  love,  for  it  is 
common  to  man  with  beasts  and  birds,  which  are  natural ;  whereas  conjugial 
love  is  a  spiritual  love,  and  peculiar  and  proper  to  men,  because  men  were 
created,  and  are  therefore  born  to  become  spiritual ;  wherefore  so  far  as  man  be- 
comes spiritual,  so  far  he  puts  off  the  love  of  the  sex,  and  puts  on  conjugial 
love."— C.  L.  48. 

"  But  no  others  come  into  this  love,  and  can  be  in  it,  except  such  as  come  to 
the  Lord,  and  love  the  truths  of  the  church,  and  practise  its  goods.  The  reason 
of  this  is,  because  monogamical  man-iages,  which  are  of  one  husband  with  one 
wife,  correspond  to  the  marriage  of  tlie  Lord  and  the  church,  and  because  such 
marriages  originate  in  the  marriage  of  good  and  truth.  Hence  it  follows,  that 
conjugial  love  with  man  is  according  to  the  state  of  the  church  with  him." — 
C.  L.  70. 

•' The  Christian  conjugial  principle  alone  is  chaste.    Christians,  in  case  theySjO<i"^^ 
marry  more  wives  than  one,  commit  not  only  natural,  but'also  spiritual  adul- ? 
tery."— C.  L.  142. 

The  question  now  arises,  are  these  principles  sound  ?  Is  such  in  fact  the 
essential  nature  of  Conjugial  Love Are  you  prepared  to  deny  or  dispute  a 
single  position  here  advanced  If  not — if  the  ground-work  is  unassailable — then 
I  would  ask  if  what  follows  respecting  the  opposite  of  this  love  be  not  eqitally 
sound  and  impregnable  ? 

"  Scortatory  love  is  opposite  to  conjugial  love,  as  hell  is  opposite  to  heaven." 
— C.  L.  429. 

"  The  delights  of  conjugial  love  ascend  to  the  highest  heaven,  and  join  them- 
selves in  the  way  thither  and  there  with  the  delights  of  all  heavenly  loves,  and 
thereby  enter  into  their  happiness,  which  endures  for  ever ;  the  reason  is,  be- 
cause the  delights  of  that  love  are  also  the  delights  of  wisdom.  But  the  pleas- 
ures of  scortatory  love  descend  even  to  the  lowest  hell,  and  join  themselves  in 
the  way  thither  and  there  with  the  pleasures  of  all  infernal  loves,  and  thereby 
enter  into  their  unhappiness,  which  consists  in  the  wretchedness  of  all  heart- 
delights  ;  the  reason  is,  because  the  pleasures  of  that  love  are  also  the  pleasures 
of  insanity."— C.  L.  294. 

"  Forasmuch  as  adultery  is  hell  with  man,  and  marriage  is  heaven  Avith  him, 
it  follows,  that  in  proi^ortion  as  man  loves  adultery,  in  the  same  proportion  he 
removes  himself  from  heaven,  consequently  that  adulteries  shut  heaven  and 
open  hell ;  this  they  do  in  proportion  as  they  are  believed  to  be  lawful,  and  are 
perceived  as  delightful  above  marriages;  wherefore  the  man  who  confirms  adul- 
teries with  himself  and  commits  them  from  leave  and  consent  of  his  will,  and 
is  averse  from  marriages,  shuts  heaven  against  himself,  until  at  length  he  does 
not  believe  anything  of  the  church  or  of  the  Word,  and  becomes  altogether  a 
sensual  man,  and  after  death  an  infernal  spirit;  for,  as  was  said  above,  adultery 
is  hell,  and  hence  an  adulterer  is  a  form  of  hell.  Inasmuch  as  adultery  is  hell, 
it  follows,  that  unless  man  abstain  from  adulteries,  and  shun  and  be  averse  from 
them  as  infernal,  he  closes  heaven  against  himself,  nor  can  he  receive  the  least 
inflitx  thence;  he  afterwards  reasons  that  marriages  and  adulteries  are  similar, 
but  that  marriages  are  to  be  guarded  in  kingdoms  for  the  sake  of  order,  and  the 
education  of  the  offspring;  and  that  adulteries  are  not  criminal,  inasmuch  as  an 
offspring  is  born  from  them  equally  as  from  marriages,  and  that  they  are  no  in- 
jury to  women,  because  they  can  endure  them;  and  further,  that  by  them  the 
procreation  of  the  human  race  is  promoted  :  not  knowing  that  such  reasonings, 
and  similar  others  in  favor  of  adulteries,  ascend  from  the  Stygian  waters  of  hell, 
and  that  the  libidinous  and  bestial  nature  of  man,  which  he  has  inherent  from 
nativity,  attracts  and  sucks  them,  as  a  hog  does  the  filth  of  a  dunghill,  witfi 
deUght."— J.  E.  982. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


"  Man  is  bom  into  the  love  of  evil  and  the  false,  which  love  is  the  love  of 
adultery,  and  this  love  cannot  be  converted  and  changed  into  spiritual  love, 
which  is  an  image  of  God,  and  still  less  into  celestial  love,  which  is  a  likeness 
■of  God,  except  by  the  marriage  of  good  and  truth  from  the  Lord,  and  not  fully 
«xcept  by  the  marriage  of  two  minds  and  of  two  bodies.  Hence  it  is  evident 
whence  it  is  that  marriages  are  celestial  and  adulteries  infernal ;  for  marriage  is 
an  image  of  heaven,  and  love  truly  conjugiul  an  image  of  the  I-ord;  and  adul- 
tery is  an  image  of  hell,  and  the  love  of  adultery  an  image  of  the  devil :  love 
conjugial  also  appears  in  the  spiritual  world  in  form  as  an  angel,  and  the  love  of 
adultery  in  form  as  a  devil.  Reader,  treasure  this  in  thy  mind,  and  inquire 
whether  it  be  true  when  thou  livest  a  man-spirit  after  death,  and  thou  wilt 
see."— ^.  E.  984. 

Such  is  an  extremely  general  and  cursory  view  of  Swedenborg's  teachings  as 
to  the  intrinsic  character  of  these  opposite  and  antagonist  loves.  In  his  mode  of 
presenting  them,  they  caimot  possibly  be  viewed  apart  from  each  other.  To 
pretend  to  exhibit  a  correct  idea  of  his  sentiments  on  the  subject  by  quoting  de- 
tached portions  of  the  latter  treatise,  without  affording  any  hint  of  the  purport 
of  the  former,  would  be  as  clamanf^  an  act  of  injustice  as  to  adduce  a  dozen  sen- 
tences from  the  latter  part  of  the  work  on  "  Heaven  and  Hell,"  containing  a  de- 
scription of  the  hells,  and  to  palm  them  upon  the  world  as  affording  a  specimen 
of  his  ideas  of  heaven.  What  could  be  imagined  more  utterly  at  war  with  all  the 
dictates  of  Christian  equity  ? 

Have  we  then,  thus  far,  encountered  anything  on  this  subject  that  can 
justly  be  deemed  open  to  censure  .' — anything  which  goes  counter  to  the  laws  of 
a  sound  and  irreproachable  morality.'    Has  he  given  an  overwrought  estimate 
of  the  sanctity  of  what  he  terms  the  "  conjugial "  principle,  and  of  the  marriage 
relation  which  is  founded  upon  it.'   Has  he  either  too  darkly,  or  not  darkly 
enough,  colored  the  portrait  of  the  opposite  principle  in  its  essence  and  ac- 
tings   Do  not  our  inmost  minds  respond  to  the  substantial  truth  of  his  represent- 
ations .'   If  the  one  principle  be  angelic  ajid  heavenly,  must  not  the  other  be 
devilish  and  hellish  ?   And  is  it  any  disparagement  to  this  view,  that  he  draws 
his  sanctions,  on  either  head,  from  the  intrinsic  nature  of  man  viewed  in  reference 
to  this  grand  department  of  his  bemg I  am  well  aware  that  theologians  are 
prone  to  rest  the  stress  of  obligation  to  moral  duties  upon  the  naked  authority  qf 
the  Divine  law.    The  uttered  will  of  Jehovah  they  seem  to  regard  as  the  all-suffii- 
cieat  basis  of  every  precept  and  prohibition,  and  any'reference  to  the  laws  grow- 
ling by  necessity  out  of  our  constitution  as  creatures,  they  are  prone  to  look  upon 
I  as  in  some  way  derogatory  to  the  honor  of  the  Supreme  Lawgiver.  Jehovah's 
I  legislative  glory  is  virtually  made  the  foundation  of  every  claim  upon  human  obe- 
'  dience,  and  little  or  nothing  is  thought  of  the  grounds  laid  in  the  very  structure  of 
Hour  being  for  right  feeling  and  action.    Now  it  is  to  be  known  that,  whether 
*,-sound  or  imsound,  Swedenborg's  theology  is  built  throughout  upon  the  laws  of 
^creation.Y  He  knows  nothing  of  me)j^  abstrac0qw±-o{sirnpleauthorita  volitiorfi^ 
ai  thie  basis  of  moral  obligation.  TTe^ows  a  reason  in  the  constitution  of  tilings 
^  "for  every  Torm  of  legal  enactment  proceeding  from  the  Deity,  and  to  this  view 
of  the  matter  his  advocates  cordially  assent.    If  the  principle  is  unsound,  they 
demand  it  shall  be  shown  in  what  respect.    It  is  in  their  esteem  a  principle  of 
pre-eminent  importance,  and  one,  the  fallacy  of  which,  if  it  be  fallacious,  deserves 
to  be  distinctly  pointed  out  at  the  hand  of  their  opponents.   Yet,  where  has 
the  slightest  attempt  at  this  been  made,  notwithstanding  the  priaciple  ties  at 


7 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


207 


the  foundation  of  all  that  Swedenborg  has  taught  on  the  subject  of  Conjugial 
and  Scortatory  love  ? 

I  must  then,  at  this  point,  again  repeat  the  question,  whether  we  have  thus 
far  met  with  anything  that  can  be  validly  objected  to  on  the  score  of  a  lax  mor- 
ality, or  of  an  erroneous  exhibition  of  the  physical  and  psychological  principles 
which  underlie  the  whole  subject  ?  Can  the  mosbcritical  inspection  detect  aught 
in  these  principles  which  strikes  at  the  root  of  any  Scriptural  precept  bearing 
upon  the  commerce  of  the  sexes  ?   If  so,  I  am  eager  to  be  informed  wherein. 

The  reply  will  doubtless  be,  that  although  there  may  be  nothing  objectionable 
in  the  principles  thus  far  laid  down,  yet  as  we  proceed  to  the  sequel  we  come 
upon  doctrines  and  ap^ications  of  quite  another  aspect  and  fraught  with  the 
most  pernicious  results  so  far  as  they  are  acted  upon.  This  would  certainly  be 
a  well  founded  charge  if  in  what  you  say  of  his  allowance  of  mistress-keeping, 
you  had  conveyed  to  your  reader  a  correct  and  fair  impression  of  the  real  drift 
of  his  statements  on  that  head.  This,  however,  I  shall  hope  to  show  is  far  from 
being  the  case,  notwithstanding  that  you  have  quoted,  m  some  instances,  his 
own  express  words ;  for  a  partial  quotation  from  any  writer  may  give  but  a  par- 
tial view  of  his  sense,  and  thus  do  him  great  injury.  Now  it  is  certain  that  the 
tenor  of  your  remarks  conveys  the  impression  that  Swedenborg  unqtialiliedly 
approves  and  sanctions  a  reson  to  ^ellicacy"^  in  the  case  of  those  who,  while  they 
are  from  various  causes  prevented  from  entering  into  the  marrijige  state,  are 
yet  the  subjects  of  strong  sexual  passions.  But  how  is  this  credible  in  view  of 
what  he  is  perpetually  insisting  upon,  that  "  scortatory  love  is  opposite  to  con- 
jugial love  as  hell  is  to  heaven" — that,  "  the  impurity  of  hell  is  from  scortatory 
love" — that  "adulterers  become  more  and  more  not  men,  but  demons" — that 
such  as  are  intent  upon  making  a  prey  of  female  innocence  are  atrocious  rob- 
bers and  pirates — that  heaven  is  entirely  closed  against  them — that  they  come 
into  the  most  grievous  hells — and  that  their  lot  after  death  is  unspeakably  terri- 
ble ?  Is  this  the  view  of  one  who  is  at  the  same  time  an  open  advocate  of  licen- 
tiousness per  se,  and  who  industriously  lays  down  a  method  of  perpetrating  sys- 
tematically and  with  impunity  the  very  evils  Avhich  he  denounces  as  the  out- 
birth  of  hell  and  the  seal  of  condemnation  to  its  fiercest  wrath Is  the  same 
breath  to  be  supposed  to  blow  hot  and  cold  in  this  manner  at  the  same  time  ? 

But  how  is  his  own  language  to  be  explained.'  Does  he  not  expressly  say 
that  in  cases  where  a  man  caimot  contain,  and  where  from  various  causes,  he  can- 
not marry  at  an  early  age,  there  is  found  a  sort  of  "  refuge  or  asylum"  in  a  provi- 
sional compact  of  pellicacy  with  a  single  female,  who  is  neither  a  virgin  nor  a 
married  woman  This  he  undoubtedly  does  say,  and  in  view  of  his  language 
I  beg  the  reader  to  suspend  his  judgment  till  it  be  fairly  weighed.  Nothing  can 
be  more  just  than  that  the  words  shall  be  interpreted,  ?/;)03st6/e,  consistently  with 
what  is  said  above,  and  with  the  obvious  design  and  drift  of  the  whole  book.  I 
say  if  possible,  because  Ido  not  scruple  to  affirm  that  with  the  evidence  already  ar- 
rayed before  us,  in  regard  to  the  dominant  scope  of  the  "  Conjugial  Love,"  no  man 
can  justly  impute  to  Swedenborg  ^xyintentionio  inculcate  doctrines  on  this  head  at 
war  with  good  morals.  A  purpose  so  suicidal  to  his  manifest  aim,  so  absurd  and 
monstrous,  cannot  be  attributed  to  a  writer  governed  by  rational  motives,  and 
whose  general  enunciations  on  this  and  other  themes,  are  marked  by  so  pro- 
found a  wisdom.   If  then  he  is  absolved  on  the  score  of  intention,  the  most  that 


208 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


^can  be  said  is,  that  he  Jias  erred  in  judgment,  that  he  has  been  in  some  way  mis- 
led in  his  casuistry,  and  that  while  aiming  at  a  good  end,  he  has  still  been  be- 
trayed by  a  mistaken  leniency  towards  human  frailty,  to  lay  down  principles  of 
action  contrary  to  the  strict  requisitions  of  the  Gospel  law.  Even  admitting  this 
to  be  the  case,  the  purity  of  his  intention  is  entitled  to  weigh  somewhat  in 
abating  the  severity  of  the  sentence  that  shall  be  pronounced  upon  his  errors. 
I  do  not  say  that  it  will  excuse  them,  but  it  certainly  goes  to  palliate  them.  But 
I  do  not  propose  to  rebut  the  force  of  the  charge  on  this  ground.  I  believe  there 
is  a  much  stronger. 

•  To  a  candid  mind,  I  am  persuaded,  nothing  can  be  more  obvious  than  that 
Swedenborg  is  here  to  be  understood  as  speaking  of  providential  permisnon/'m 
respect  to  worldly  and  natural  men,  who  are  not  yet  brought  under  the  govern- 
ment of  sound  religious  principle.  As  a  sensible  man,  he  could  not  be  blind  to 
the  fact,  that  there  are  those  who  are  so  immersed  in  sensuality,  so  obsequiously 
led  by  their  lusts,  so  deaf  to  the  voice  of  conscience,  and  so  dead  to  the  senti- 
ments of  piety,  that,  in  tlieir  present  state,  they  cannot  be  expected  to  feel  the  force 
of  the  motives  which  address  themselves  to  men  who  fear  God  and  love  right- 
eousness. Goaded  on  by  powerful  passion  they  cannot,  because  they  will 
not,  control  its  actings.  The  inability  does  not  excuse  their  indulgence,  nor  will 
you  find  a  sentence  in  Swedenborg  which  declares  the  innocence  of  such  persons 
in  yielding  to  their  impulses.  Yet  he  uses  the  term  cannot  just  as  the  sacred  wri- 
ters use  it  in  reference  to  precisely  the  same  prompting :  "  Having  eyes  full  of 
adultery  which  cannot  cease  from  sin  ;"  "  If  a  man  cannot  contain,"  &c.  Here  is 
the  simple  recognition,  of  a  fact,  which  no  one  will  deny,  and  which  may  be  spoken 
of  as  a  fact  without  special  reference  to  its  moral  character,  much  less  without 
any  implied  approval  or  sanction  of  it.  It  is  a  fact  that  there  are  such  men ;  it  is 
a  fact  that  they  act  from  such  instigations ;  it  is  a  fact  that  the  Divine  Providence 
does  not  prevent  it,  that  is,  that  it  permits  it;  masmuch  as  the  world  is  not 
governed  on  the  principle  of  forced  but  of  voluntary  obedience.^  The  Most  High 
C  does  not  command  his  lightnings  to  kindle  upon  the  houses  of  ill-fame  in  our 
large  cities.  He  does  not  come  forth  "  terrible  from  his  holy  places  "  and  smite 
the  frequenter  of  these  houses  as  he  puts  his  foot  upon  the  threshold.  In  accor- 
dance with  the  genera!  scheme  of  his  administration.  He  leaves  every  one  to  the 
freedom  of  his  own  will,  and  to  construct  his  destiny  by  forming  his  life  ac- 
cording to  his  love.  He  holds  out  every  variety  of  motive — admonitions, 
warnings,  invitations,  threateniugs — to  induce  him  as  a  free  rational  being,  to 
"  cease  to  do  evil,  to  learn  to  do  well" — to  repent,  believe,  and  be  saved — but 
he  will  not  violently  compel  him  to  renounce  iniquity  and  cleave  to  good.  In 
other  words,  he  permits  the  evil  to  do  evil. 

The  question  now  arises,  whether  the  Christian  moralist  is  warranted  in  recog- 
nizing the  fact  of  these  permissions,  and  in  speaking  of  one  form  or  degree  of  evil 
as  less  heinou  *than  another,  when  all  are  bad.  The  answer  to  this  question  will 
determine  the  character  of  Swedenborg's  teachings  on  the  point  under  consider- 
ation. If  il  be  in  no  circumstances  lawful  to  discriminate  between  the  relative 
decrees  of  moral  turpitude,  or  to  assume  to  show  that  one  kind  of  vice  is  less 
grievous  and  destructive  of  happiness  than  another,  then  doubtless  a  verdict 
must  be  pronounced  against  Swedenborg,  for  this  is  precisely  what  he  has  done 
His  offence  "hath  this  extent,  no  more."   He  has  done  what  you  would  do  if 


■  --^      -    -  .  k 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  209 

you'should  say  to  an  incorrigible  drunkard,  "If  you  will  drink  in  spite  of  every 
remonstrance,  then  I  beseech  you  to  confine  yourself  to  wine  instead  of  a  beve- 
rage more  fully  drugged  with  the  poison  of  alcohol."  Would  you  feel  that  you 
were  guilty  of  a  moral  wrong  in  uttering  these  words  ?  Would  you  deem  it  a 
just  imputation  that  you  were  hereby  countenancing  intemperance What 
would  be  your  crime  in  the  case  ?  You  tell  the  man  that  entire  abstinence  were 
infinitely  better  thaVi  drinking  at  all ;  you  do  all  in  your  power  to  dissuade  from 
giving  way  to  his  appetite,  but  if  in  spite  of  everything  he  will  still  persist — if 
neither  the  fear  of  God  nor  regard  for  man  will  weigh  with  him — would  you  feel 
that  you  were  wronging  the  interests  of  law  or  righteousness  by  saying  to  him 
that  of  two  evils  he  had  better  choose  the  leas??  If  you  cannot  save  him  entirely, 
is  it  wrong  to  endeavor  to  save  him  as  far  as  you  can Now  this  is  what  I 
understand  to  be  the  principle  on  which  Swedenborg  proceeds  in  treating  the 
subject  of  scortation.  There  is  not  the  slightest  approach  to  anything  like  an 
absolute  approval  or  countenance  of  licentious  indulgence,  and  this  is  confirmed 
by  his  own  express  declaration,  that  "  these  things  are  not  said  to  those  who  are 
able  to  restrain  the  heat  of  lust,  nor  to  those  that  are  able  to  enter  into  marriage 
immediately  upon  their  becoming  mature."  In  the  latter  case  he  would  undoubt- 
-"dly  prescribe  the  apostle's  remedy — "  If  they  cannot  contain,  let  them  marry." 
iJut  suppose  a  man  who  is  not  yet  principled  in  religion  is  unable,  from  various 
causes,  to  marry,  while  still  the  sexual  stimulus  is  strong  and  urgent  within 
him,  prompting  to  promiscuous  indulgence ;  although  entire  continence  were 
every  way  preferable,  yet  inasmuch  as  religious  considerations  do  not  bear 
sway,  may  it  not  be  said  to  him,  or  rather  may  it  not  be  said  o/him,  that  it  were 
better  that  he  should  confine  himself  to  one  mistress,  than  that  he  should  give 
loose  to  his  passions  in  roaming  and  unlimited  amours 

But  I  anticipate  the  obvious  reply.  We  are  to  make  no  allowances — we  are 
to  give  no  quarters  to  any  form  or  degree  of  what  is  intrinsically  evil — we  have 
nothing  to  do  with  drawing  nice  distinctions  which  will  be  perverted  to  the 
accommodation  of  depraved  men  in  the  indulgence  of  their  lusts.  It  is  all  evil 
— evil  only — evil  continually.  What  have  good  men  to  do  with  the  accursed 
thing  but  to  denounce  and  condemn  it  under  every  conceivable  aspect  ?  This 
has  doubtless  a  plausible  air,  but  it  is  not,  I  think,  beyond  question.  I  am  at 
any  rate  unable  for  myself  to  refuse  assent  to  the  soundness  of  what  is  contained 
in  the  following  paragraph. 

"  There  are  degrees  of  the  qualities  of  evil,  as  there  are  degrees  of  the  quali- 
ties of  good;  wherefore  every  evil  is  lighter  and  more  grievous,  as  every  good 
is  better  and  more  excellent.  The  case  is  the  same  with  fornication  ;  which,  as 
being  a  lust,  and  a  lust  of  the  natural  man  not  yet  purified,  is  an  evil ;  but  as 
every  man  is  capable  of  being  purified,  therefore  so  far  as  it  accedes  to  a  puri- 
fied state,  so  far  that  evil  becomes  a  lighter  evil,  for  so  far  it  is  wiped  away; 
thus  so  far  as  fornication  accedes  to  conjugial  love,  which  is  a  purified  state  of 
the  love  of  the  sex,  [so  fax  it  becomes  a  lighter  evil] :  that  the  evil  of  fornication 
is  more  grievous,  so  far  as  it  accedes  to  the  love  of  adultery,  will  be  seen  in  the 
subsequent  article.  The  reason  why  fornication  is  light,  so  far  as  it  looks  to  con- 
jugial love  is,  because  it  then  looks  from  the  unchaste  state  wherein  it  is,  to  a 
chaste  state  ;  and  so  far  as  it  gives  a  preference  to  the  latter,  so  far  it  is  also  in  it 
as  to  the  understanding;  and  so  far  as  it  not  only  prefers  it,  but  also  pre-loves 
it,  so  far  it  is  also  in  it  as  to  the  will,  thus  as  to  the  internal  man  ;  and  in  this 
case  fornication,  if  the  man  nevertheless  persists  in  it,  is  to  him  a  necessity,  the 
causes  whereof  he  well  examines  in  himself.    There  are  two  reaisons  which 

14 


210 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


render  fornication  light  with  those  who  prefer  and  pre-love  the  conjugial  state ; 
the  first  is,  that  conjugial  life  is  their  purpose,  intention,  or  end ;  the  other  is, 
that  they  separate  good  from  evil  with  themselves.  In  regard  to  the  first, — 
that  conjugial  life  is  their  purpose,  intention,  or  end,  it  has  the  above  effect,  in- 
asmuch as  a  man  is  such  a  man  as  he  is  in  his  purpose,  intention,  or  end,  and 
is  also  such  before  the  Lord  and  the  angels ;  yea,  he  is  likewise  regarded  as 
such  by  the  wise  in  the  world ;  for  intention  is  the  soul  of  all  actions,  and  cau- 
ses blamableness  and  unblamableness  in  the  world,  and  after  death  imputation. 
In  regard  to  the  other  reason, — that  those  who  prefer  conjugial  love  to  the  lust 
of  fornication,  separate  evil  from  good,  thus  what  is  unchaste  from  what  is 
chaste,  it  has  the  above  effect,  inasmuch  as  those  who  separate  those  two  prin- 
ciples by  perception  and  intention,  before  they  are  in  good  or  the  chaste  prin- 
ciple, are  also  separated  and  purified  from  the  evil  of  that  lust,  when  they  come 
into  the  conjugial  state." — C.  L.  452. 

Now  if  the  main  principle  here  asserted  be  in  itself  a  sound  principle,  why  may 
it  not  be  said  to  be  so.'  If  the  judgment  of  God  is  according  to  truth,  and  it  be 
a  truth  tha:t  one  evil  is  intrinsically  greater  than  another,  will  He  not  so  account 
it  ?  Is  it  said  that  the  Scriptures  know  no  such  distinction,  but  that  all  evil  is  by 
them  mdiscriminately  condemned,  and  that  it  is  relaxing  the  vigor  of  the  divine 
law  to  make  the  slightest  concessions  to  human  infirmity,  and  especially  to 
build  anything  upon  the  fact  that  the  Lord  in  his  providence  permits  aught  that  he 
has  forbidden  in  his  word  But  it  is  palpably  impossible  to  get  over  the  fact 
that  the  Scriptures  themselves  do  recognize  the  doctrine  of  permissions,  and  that 
even  the  positive  legislation  of  Jehovah  among  the  Jews  was,  in  several  points, 
ordered  in  reference  to  certain  things  which  were  in  themselves  evil,  and  which 
were  permitted  with  a  view  to  the  avoidance  of  greater  evils.  Indeed  a  stronger 
term  than  permission  is  warranted  by  the  facts  of  the  case.  It  was  a  species  of 
winking  at  the  prevalence  of  practices  which  were  at  the  same  time  at  variance 
with  the  general  scope  of  the  divine  statutes.  Polygamy  was  in  itself  an  in- 
fraction of  the  primitive  ordinance  of  monogamical  marriage.  Yet  polygamy 
was  tolerated,  and  express  laws  were  enacted  to  regulate  it.  Divorce,  except 
for  a  single  cause,  was  equally  abhorrent  to  the  true  nature  and  ends  of  the 
marriage  institute,  and  yet  a  clement  consideration  of  the  "  hardness  of  heart"  of 
that  people  led  to  an  abatement  of  the  original  rigor  with  which  the  sacred  cove- 
nant was  enjoined.  These  are  facts  which  it  is  impossible  by  any  sophistry  to 
deny,  and  I  adduce  them  to  show  that  Swedenborg  has  powerful  precedent  to 
plead  when  he  makes  providential  permissions  the  basis  of  prudential  suggestions 
applicable  to  those  who  are  not  at  present  accessible  to  higher  motives.  It 
avails  nothing  to  say,  in  regard  to  these  ancient  allowances,  that  they  are  done 
away  under  the  gospel.  Even  conceding  this,  still  the  fact  that  they  existed  is 
uot  done  away,  and  never  can  be,  and  this  fact  proves  the  soundness  of  the 
general  principle ;  for  if  polygamy  and  divorce  for  the  reason  intimated,  are  in 
their  own  nature  diametrically  opposite  to  and  destructive  of  the  conjugal  union, 
they  could  no  more  have  been  allowed  under  the  law  than  under  the  gospel, 
'  much  less  could  they  have  been  the  subject  of  direct  regulation  on  the  part  of 
the  Divine  Lawgiver.  The  reasoning  of  Milton  on  this  head  in  his  "  Doctrine 
and  Discipline  of  Divorce"  I  regard  as  absolutely  unanswerable.  He  shows  by  a 
process  of  moral  logic  too  luminous  to  have  been  expected  from  any  other  poet 
than  himself,  that  to  allow  absolute  sin  by  law,  is  against  the  nature  of  law,  the 
end  of  the  lawgiver,  and  the  good  of  the  people,  and  therefore  impossible  in  the 


-  —    -  / 

COO  Cf-^^  )  ^^^^  /t-^-^^K-*  < 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


211 


law  of  God.  "  Be  it  yielded,"  says  he,  "  that  in  matters  not  very  bad  or  impure, 
a  human  lawgiver  may  slacken  something  of  that  which  is  exactly  good,  to  the 
disposition  of  the  people  and  the  times ;  but  if  the  perfect,  the  pure,  the  right- 
eous law,  of  God  be  found  to  have  allowed  smoothly,  without  any  certain  rep; 
rehension,  that  which  Christ  afterward  declares  to  be  adultery,  how  can  we  free 
this  law  from  the  horrible  indictment  of  being  both  impure,  luijust,  and  falla- 
cious      "  If  the  law  allow  sin,  it  enters  into  a  kind  of  covenant  with  sin ;  andj 


ifit  do,  there  is  not  a  greater  sinner  in  the  world  than  the  law  itself." — "  Did  God^ 
for  this  come  down  and  cover  the  mount  of  Sinai  with  his  glory,  uttering  in  thun- 
der those  his  sacred  ordinances  out  of  the  bottomless  treasures  of  his  wisdom 
and  infinite  pureness,  to  patch  up  an  ulcerous  and  rotten  commonwealth  with 
strict  and  stern  injunctions  to  wash  the  skin  and  garments  for  every  unclean 
touch ;  and  (yet)  such  easy  permission  given  to  pollute  the  soul  with  adulteries 
by  public  authority,  without  disgrace  or  question  No,  it  had  been  better  that 
man  had  never  known  law  or  matrimony,  than  that  such  foul  iniquity  should 
be  fastened  upon  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth ;  and  such  a 
piece  of  folly  as  Beelzebub  would  not  commit,  to  divide  against  himself  and 
prevent  his  own  ends." — "  The  vigor  of  his  law  could  no  more  remit,  than  the 
hallowed  fire  upon  his  altar  could  be  let  go  out.  The  lamps  that  burned  before 
him  mi%ht  need  snuffing,  but  the  light  of  his  law  never." 

All  this  I  have  cited  to  show  that  there  is  such  a  thing  in  the  divine  govern- 
ment as  the  kindly  consideration  of  certain  circumstances  and  conditions  which 
go  to  modify  the  character  of  moral  actions,  and  to  which  we  are  not  required 
to  be  blinded  by  the  fact  that  they  are  capable  of  perversion  and  abuse.  Who 
can  suppose  that  the  sufferance  accorded  to  the  Jews  on  the  ground  of  "  hardness 
of  heart"  was  not  sometimes  abused  under  vain  and  injurious  pretexts Yet  the 
concession  was  not  thereby  revoked.   So  in  regard  to  an  important  item  oc- 
curring in  the  above  quotation  from  Swedenborg ; — "  In  this  case  fornication,  if 
the  man  nevertheless  persists  in  it,  is  to  him  a  necessity,  the  causes  whereof  he  well 
examines  in  himself  (in  explorato  apud  ilium  sunt)."   Let  this  be  viewed  in  its 
connection  with  the  context  and  it  will  be  seen  to  be  a  case  of  real,  but  com- 
paratively light,  infraction  of  the  law  of  chastity.    It  is  rendered  thus  light 
by  the  fact,  that  the  man  really  prefers  and  pre-loves  the  conjugal  state,  and 
is  only  prevented  from  marriage  by  the  force  of  accidental  causes.    Still  he 
has  it  in  view  as  his  fixed  purpose  and  end,  and  is  prompted  solely  by  what 
he  deems,  whether  correctly  or  not,  a  present  necessity  in  antedating  marital  privi- 
leges.   The  grounds  of  such  apprehended  necessity  are  stated  elsewhere,  and 
will  soon  come  before  us.    How  far  they  are  intrinsically  valid,  men  will 
judge  for  themselves,  and  this  is  plainly  hinted  at  in  the  expression — "  the  cau- 
ses whereof  he  well  examines  in  himself."    As  Swedenborg  regards  him  as  a 
natural  man,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  same  reasons  which  satisfy  him  would 
satisfy  a  spiritual  man,  but  still  his  imagined  causes  go  to  relieve  his  conscience, 
and  he  has  not  therefore  the  guilt  of  one  who  sins  against  light.    The  case 
however  is  not  mentioned  by  way  of  approval,  but  simply  as  an  instance  of  the 
operation  of  circumstances  in  rendering  an  act  more  venial  man  it  would  other- 
wise be.    And  to  what  Swedenborg  has  said  it  may  be  added,  that  the  essence 
of  marriage  is  in  the  mutual  consent  and  soul-affiancing  of  the  parties,  and  not 
in  the  nuptial  rite  performed  at  the  altar ;  so  that  there  is  plainly  less  violence 


212 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


done  to  the  marriage  tie  in  proportion  as  the  fixed  intention  of  marriage  enters 
into  the  act  in  question. 

What  then  is  more  palpable  than  the  truth  of  the  principle,  that  there  are 
degrees  in  the  evil  of  fornication  And  if  such  be  the  fact,  cannot  it  be  stated 
by  the  moralist  without  weaJiening  the  sanctions  of  virtue  or  legitimating  the 
issues  of  vice.'  The  principle  is  undoubtedly  capable  of  abuse — as  what  true 
principle  is  not — but  the  abuse  is  not  justly  chargeable  upon  its  simple  enun- 
ciation. This  is  not  necessarily  responsible  for  the  use  that  may  be  made  of  it. 
He  that  will  pervert  it  to  the  justification  of  his  wrongs,  does  it  at  his  peril. 
The  fact  I  believe  to  be  that  Swedenborg's  teachings  on  this  subject  are  not  so 
much  designed  to  lay  down  rules  of  action  as  rules  of  judgment  in  regard  to  actions 
having  reference  to  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes.  It  is  little  else  than  a  part  of 
His  grand  doctrine  of  Providence,  upon  the  interior  springs  of  which  he  has 
poured  a  light  never  before  accorded  to  the  Christian  world.  In^  his  treatise  on 
that  subject  he  has  shown,  for  instance,  that  the  Mahometan  religion  was  spe- 
cially raised  up  to  accomplish  important  purposes  of  the  Divine  Wisdom  in  re- 
spect to  the  Oriental  nations,  more  particularly  in  effecting  the  extirpation  of 
idolatries,  which  could  never  have  been  brought  about  but  by  a  certain  degree  of 
connivance  at  the  doctrinal  tenets  embraced  in  that  religion.  But  shall  a  Chris- 
tian teacher  be  precluded  from  laying  open  the  laws  of  this  providential  econ- 
omy, because  forsooth  his  readers  might  be  led  to  suppose  that  he  was  sanction- 
ing the  Koran  and  setting  aside  the  Bible  ?  If  one  does  not  perceive  somewhat 
of  the  principles  upon  which  the  Lord  proceeds  in  the  ordering  of  his  provi- 
dence in  regard  to  the  evils  of  evil  men,  controlling  their  conduct,  while  he  still 
preserves  their  freedom,  such  an  one  is  not  in  a  condition  to  pronounce  upon 
the  purport  of  Swedenborg's  doctrines  in  the  work  under  consideration.  He 
cannot  appreciate  the  light  of  intelligence  with  which  his  receivers  know  them- 
selves to  be  endowed  in  contemplating  the  great  truths  of  the  Divine  order. 
Their  claims  on  this  head  may  be  arraigned  of  presumption  and  laughed  to 
scorn,  but  the  perpetual  hills  may  as  soon  be  shaken  by  the  breath  of  an  infant 
as  the  strength  of  their  interior  convictions  be  moved. 

In  relation  to  this  whole  department  of  the  subject,  the  following  remarks  from 
the  Rev.  J.  H.  Smithson's  Letter  to  Rev.  Mr.  Gibbon,  in  refutation  of  his  calumnies 
against  Swedenborgand  his  writings,  will  be  seen  by  the  candid  reader  to  be  pe- 
culiarly appropriate  and  striking ; — "Like  a  skilful  physician,  he  marks  and  exam- 
ines every  symptom  of  the  dreadful  disease.  Those  symptoms  which  are  of  a  less 
malignant  character  he  particularly  notes :  upon  these  he  rests  his  hopes  that 
the  patient,  if  he  follow  the  prescriptions  given,  will  eventually  return  to  spiritual 
health  and  happiness ;  and  yet  assures  him,  that  otherwise  the  disease  will  con- 
tinue its  ravages.  Those  symptoms,  however,  which  are  of  a  more  grievous  char- 
acter he  especially  points  out,  and  warns  the  patient,  that  if  they  are  not  subdued 
and  removed,  death — spiritual  death — will  follow ;  for  there  is  '  asin  unto  death, 
and  '  a  sin  not  unto  death.'  For  the  lust  of  fornication,  as  he  states,  is  less  griev- 
ous and  deadly  in  proportion  as  it  verges  towards  conjugial  love,  that  is,  towards 
a  regenerate  state  ;  and  it  becomes  more  grievous  and  deadly  in  proportion  as  it 
verges  to  adultery.  Now  this  is  precisely  the  point  of  view  in  which  Sweden- 
borg  places  this  subject ;  and  the  physician  and  the  disease  exactly  illustrate  the 
'nature  of  the  case.   But  who  in  his  right  mind,  unwarped  by  prejudice,  or  not 


\ 

I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


213 


actuated  by  a  hostile  predetermination  to  condemn,  was  ever  known  to  allege 
the  grossest  accusations  against  a  physician  for  fully  exploring  the  nature  of  a 
disease,  and  discriminating  between  those  symptoms  which,  with  proper  treat- 
ment, afford  areasonable  hope  of  recovery,  and  those  which  infallibly  prove  that 
the  disease  is  destructive  and  deadly  ?  Does  not  the  skill  of  a  physician  chiefly 
consist  in  being  able  to  make  this  most  important  discrimination,  as  well  as  in 
pointing  out  the  specific  remedies  to  restore  health  and  happiness?  The  reme- 
dies in  this,  as  in  every  other  sinful  case,  are,  as  Swedenborg  so  repeatedly 
shows,  a  living  faith  in  the  Lord  Himself,  as  the  great  Physician  of  souls,  and 
the  exercise  of  fervent  prayer  and  sincere  repentance:  these  are  the  means  by 
which  spiritual  recovery  and  health  can  be  established.  Now  those  who  would 
allege  the  grossest  accusations  against  Swedenborg  on  this  head,  are  as  absurd 
and  calumnious  in  their  conduct,  as  those  who  would  lay  the  grossest  charges 
against  a  physician  because  he  discriminates  between  the  more  and  less  griev- 
ous symptoms  of  a  complaint,  and  wisely  prescribes  according  to  the  exigencies 
of  the  case." — Intel.  Repos.  Nov.  1841,  p.  495. 

With  these  preliminaries  let  us  look  at  a  sentence  which  you  have  quoted 
with  the  evident  implication  of  its  embodying  an  ethical  enormity  of  the  grossest 
character;  In  order  to  present  the  subject  fairly  I  cite  at  some  length  the  con- 
text. The  main  object  of  the  section  is  to  show  that  pellicacy  ispreferable  to  vague 
amours,  ■provided  only  one  mistress  is  kept  and  she  be  neither  a  virgin  nor  a  married 
woman,  audit  be  kept  separate  from  conjugial  love. 

"  I.  The  reason  why  only  one  mistress  is  to  be  kept,  is,  because  if  more  than 
one  be  kept,  a  polygamical  principle  gains  influence,  which  induces  in  a  man  a 
mejely  natural  state,  and  thrusts  him  down  into  a  sensual  state,  insomuch  that 
he  cannot  be  elevated  into  a  spiritual  state,  in  which  conjugial  love  must  be. 
IL  The  reason  why  this  mistress  must  not  be  a  virgin,  is,  because  conjugial  love 
with  women  acts  in  unity  with  their  virginity,  and  hence  is  the  chastity,  purity, 
and  sanctity  of  that  love ;  wherefore  when  a  woman  makes  an  engagement 
and  allotment  of  her  virginity  to  any  man,  it  is  the  same  thing  as  giving  him  a 
certificate  that  she  will  love  him  to  eternity :  on  this  account  a  virgin  cannot, 
from  any  rational  consent,  barter  away  her  virginity,  unless  in  case  of  engage- 
ment respecting  the  conjugial  covenant ;  it  is  also  the  crown  of  her  honor:  where- 
fore to  pre-seize  it  without  a  covenant  of  marriage,  and  afterwards  to  discard  her, 
is  to  make  a  virgin  a  courtezan,  who  might  have  been  a  bride  or  a  chaste  wife, 
or  to  defraud  some  man,  and  each  is  hurtful.  Therefore  whoever  takes  a  virgin  and 
joins  her  to  himself  a^  a  mistress,  may  indeed  cohabit  with  her,  and  thereby  initiate  her 
into  the  friendship  of  love,  but  still  with  a  constant  intention,  if  she  do  not  act  thewanton, 
that  she  shall  be  or  become  his  wife.  111.  That  the  kept  mistress  must  not  be  a  mar- 
ried woman,  because  this  is  adultery,  is  evident." — C.  L.  460. 

The  sentence  in  Italics  is  that  which  you  have  quoted,  and  to  which  j'ou  ap- 
pend the  remark  that  it  is  to  be  understood  as  a  specimen  of  "  the  more  free  way 
of  thinking  in  spiritual  things  (more  properly  in  ca?-na/  things)  which  Sweden- 
borg introduced." 

Now  nothing  more  is  requisite  than  a  candid  perusal  of  the  whole  extract  to  see 
that  this  is  an  exception  to  what  is  taught  in  its  general  scope.  A  man  is  not  to 
enter  into  a  compact  of  pellicacy  with  a  virgin-mistress  for  the  reasons  stated. 
But  if  he  does,  the  nature  of  the  relation  is  changed.  His  cohabitation  with  her  is 
to  be  distinctly  on  the  ground  of  intended  marriage,  and  though  the  connection  in 
this  case  is  by  no  means  invested  with  the  character  of  innocence,  yet  the  sin- 
cere purpose  of  marriage  does  undoubtedly  avail  to  bring  it  in  the  category  of 
the  lighter  forms  of  the  evil,  according  to  the  distinctions  laid  down.    But  his 


214 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


main  drift  in  the  section,  as  is  evident  from  what  follows,  is  to  show  that  the 
love  of  pellicacy  is  to  be  kept  separate  from  conjugial  love.  "  The  reason  why 
the  love  of  pellicacy  is  to  be  kept  separate  from  conjugial  love,  is,  because  those 
loves  are  distinct,  and  therefore  ought  not  to  be  mixed  together;  for  the  love  of 
pellicacy  is  love  unchaste,  natural,  and  external;  whereas  the  love  of  marriage 
is  chaste,  spiritual,  and  internal.  The  love  of  pellicacy  makes  distinct  the 
souls  of  two  persons,  and  conjoins  only  the  sensual  principles  of  the  body ;  but 
the  love  of  marriage  conjoins  souls,  and  from  the  union  of  souls  conjoins  also 
the  sensual  jirinciples  of  the  body,  until  from  two  they  become  as  one,  wi.ich  is 
one  flesh."  "  If  the  love  of  pellicacy  becomes  the  love  of  marriage,  the  man 
cannot,  from  any  right,  recede,  without  the  violation  of  conjugial  union ;  and  if  he 
does  recede  and  marry  another,  conjugial  love  perishes  from  the  breach  of  it.  It 
ought  to  be  known  that  the  love  of  pellicacy  is  held  separate  from  conjugial  love, 
in  that  he  does  not  promise  marriage  to  the  mistress,  nor  lead  her  into  any  hope 
of  marriage."  Be  it  observed,  however,  that  in  all  this  he  is  speaking  of  the  nat  j 
ural  man  under  the  influence  of  natural  principles ;  that  he  regards  the  whole  thing 
as  intrinsically  a  form  of  evil ;  and  accordingly  he  winds  up  with  saying ;—"  Yet 
it  is  better  that  the  torch  of  the  love  of  the  sex  should  be  kindled  with  a  wife." 

I  must  here  be  permitted  to  request  that  your  eye  may  be  turned  back  for  a 
moment  to  the  second  of  tne  reasons  given  in  the  above  quoted  paragraph.  It 
is  of  the  utmost  importance  as  viewed  in  connection  with  Swedeiiborg's  whofe  I 
doctrine  of  scortatory  love.  You  will  see  from  it  that  he  neither  allows  nor  per- 
|mits,  in  any  possible  circumstances,  the  wanton  violation  of  female  innocence, 
,No  plea  of  necessity  or  expediency  can  avail  for  one  moment  to  justify  the  spo- 
liation of  the  priceless  pearl  of  maiden  purity.  To  the  same  purpose  he  remarks 
on  a  subsequent  page,  that  "  the  defloration  of  a  virgin  without  a  view  to  mar- 
riage as  an  end,  is  the  villany  of  a  robber."  The  grounds  of  this  emphatic  rep- 
robation of  the  vile  seducer  exist  in  the  fact  that  "  virginity  is  not  only  the  crown 
of  chastity,  but  it  is  also  called  the  certificate  of  conjugial  love,  because  a  certi- 
ficate has  relation  to  a  covenant;  and  the  covenant  is,  that  love  may  unite  them 
into  one  man,  or  one  flesh.  The  men  themselves  also  before  marriage  regard 
the  virginity  of  the  bride  as  a  crown  of  her  chastity,  and  as  a  pledge  of  conju- 
gial love,  and  as  the  very  dainty  from  which  the  delights  of  that  love  are  about 
to  commence  and  to  be  perpetuated.  From  these  considerations  it  is  manifest 
that  after  the  zon£is  taken  away,  and  the  virginity  is  sipped,  the  virgin  becomes 
a  wife,  and  if  not  a  wife,  she  becomes  a  harlot."  Now  I  beg  it  may  be  consider- 
ed whether  his  actual  prohibition  on  this  score  does  not  in  fact  strike  at  the  root 
of  all  his  alleged  allowances  on  every  other.  Do  not  his  teachings  on  this 
\,  point  carry  with  them  the  germ  of  an  eventual  superseding  of  even  every  appar- 
~  ent  and  reputed  license  that  may  be  said  to  mark  or  mar  the  system  ?  If  "  where 
.  no  wood  is  the  fire  gocth  out,"  so  there  certainly  can  be  no  pellicacy  where  there 
are  no  pellice^i,  and  where  can  they  be  found  if  there  are  no  seductions  ?  But 
seductions  can  never  occur  where  Swedenborg's  principles  are  acted  upon,  so 
that  whatever  bane  may  be  charged  upon  bis  precepts,  they  assuredly  carry 
their  own  antidote  with  them.  How  then  can  the  indictment  stand  against  him 
of  inculcating  a  lax  morality  on  the  score  of  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes .' 

"  But  does  he  not  sanction  pellicacy  .'"   If  so,  how  .'   As  to  the  general  prop- 
osition, that  pellicacy  is  preferable  to  vague  amours,  under  the  conditions 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


215 


which  he  specifies,  I  would  respectfully  inquire  if  you  do  not  yourself  pro- 
nounce the  same  verdict.  Does  not  your  calm  reason  decide,  that  if  there 
is  no  rational  ground  to  hope  that  the  evil  will  be  speedily  entirely  abol- 
ished, it  would  be  infinitely  preferable  that  the  abandoned  women  in  our  popu- 
lous cities  should  forego  promiscuous  intercourse  and  confine  themselves  each 
to  a  single  paramour,  rather  than  venally  bestow  themselves,  as  they  do,  upon 
every  vile  solicitor.'  And  so,  on  the  other  hand,  v/ith  the  opposite  party.  I 
admit  of  course  that  even  this  is  worse  than  something  be^er ;  but  is  it  not  also 
better  than  something  worse  ?  Is  there  not  in  this  a  faint  shadow  of  the  conjugal 
relation— something  in  a  degree  conservative  of  the  radical  principle  of  its  love, 
and  which,  with  the  full  concession  of  its  shortcomings,  may  still  be  regarded 
with  some  measure  of  forbearance  when  the  strength  of  the  sexual  impulse 
and  the  political  or  social  obstacles  to  marriage  are  taken  into  the  account I 
would  not  for  the  world  advance  a  sentiment  on  this  subject  which  could  be 
legitimately  construed  into  a  sanction  of  vice,  but  I  am  unable  to  perceive  any- 
thing derogatory  to  the  true  character  of  Christianity  ui  supposing  it  capable  of 
a  certain  kind  and  generous  consideration  of  evils  which  have  been  vastly  aggra- 
vated by  factitious  and  accidental  causes.  May  not  the  Gospel,  as  well  as  the 
Law,  evince  some  sympathy  with  human  infirmities,  and  may  not  a  benevolent 
teacher  of  its  doctrines,  who  has  given  so  much  evidence  of  speaking  the 
language  of  superhuman  wisdom,  be  permitted  to  hint  at  a  mode  of  mitigating 
ills  which  cannot  at  be  once  eradicated,  without  exposing  himself  to  the  charge 
of  aiming  at  a  total  subversion  of  the  laws  of  moral  purity  ?  Has  he  not  shown 
a  higher  estimate  of  those  laws  and  traced  them  to  a  deeper  foundation  than 
any  other  man  Can  he  be  a  real  enemy  to  the  good  which  their  observance  is 
calculated  to  produce 

I  have,  I  believe,  in  what  precedes  exposed  to  view  those  portions  of  Sweden- 
borg's  doctrine  of  pellicacy  which  are  usually  regarded  as  most  exceptionable. 
But  I  would  deal  with  the  utmost  fairness  by  my  readers,  and  shall  therefore  go 
still  more  fully  into  the  subject,  and  appeal  to  his  candid  judgment  in  the  array 
of  the  following  propositions,  for  the  most  part  in  Swedenborg's  own  words : — 

(1.)  "  That  it  is  not  known  what  is  the  quality  of  scortatory  love,  unless  it  be 
known  what  is  the  quality  of  conjugial  love."    Is  not  this  a  fact 

(2.)  "  That  scortatory  love  is  opposed  to  conjugial  love."    Is  not  this  a  fact? 

(3.)  "  That  scortatory  love  is  opposed  to  conjugial  love,  as  the  natural  man 
viewed  in  himself  is  opposed  to  the  spiritual  man."    Is  not  this  a  fact 

(4.)  "  That  scortatory  love  is  opposed  to  conjugial  love,  as  the  connubial  con- 
i^ection  of  what  is  evil  and  false  is  opposed  to  the  marriage  of  good  and  truth." 
Is  not  this  a  fact  ? 

(5.)  "  That  hence  scortatory  love  is  opposed  to  conjugial  love,  as  hell  is  op- 
posed to  heaven."    Is  not  this  a  fact 

(6.)  "That  scortatory  love  makes  a  man  more  and  more  not  a  man,  and  that 
conjugial  love  makes  a  man  more  and  more  a  man."  Is  not  this  a  fact Is  he 
not  rendered  by  this  vile  love  more  and  more  a  brute 

(7.)  "  That  the  delights  of  scortatory  love  commence  from  the  flesh,  and  are  of 
the  flesh  even  in  the  spirit;  but  that  the  delights  of  conjugial  love  commence  in 
the  spirit  and  are  of  the  spirit  even  in  the  flesh."    Is  not  this  a  fact .' 

(8.)  "  That  the  delights  of  scortatory  love  are  the  pleasures  of  insanity,  but  that 
the  delights  of  conjugial  love  are  the  delights  of  wisdom."   Is  not  this  a  fact .' 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


(9.)  "  That  fornication  is  of  the  natural  man."    Is  not  this  a  fact  ? 

(10.)  "  That  fornication  is  lust,  but  not  the  lust  of  adultery."  Is  not  this  a  fact .' 

(11.)  "  That  with  some  men  the  love  of  the  sex  cannot  be,  without  hurt,  totally- 
checked  from  going  forth  into  fornication."  Is  not  this  a  fact,  when  under- 
stood according  to  its  evident  import,  viz.  that  a  certain  constitutional  ap- 
petency is  often  attended  with  injurious  effects,  both  physically  and  mentally, 
when  restrained  from  its  natural  mode  of  gratification ;  which  is  palpably 
all  that  is  intended  by  fornication  in  this  connection.  "  It  is  needless,"  says  he, 
"  to  recount  the  mischiefs  which  may  be  caused  and  produced  by  too  great 
a  check  of  the  love  of  the  sex,  with  such  persons  as  labor  under  a  superabun- 
dant venereal  heat ;  from  this  source  are  to  be  traced  the  origins  of  certain  bodily 
diseases  and  of  distempers  of  the  mind,  not  to  mention  unknown  evils,  which 
are  not  to  be  named.  It  is  otherwise  with  those  whose  love  of  the  sex  is  so 
scanty,  that  they  can  resist  the  sallies  of  its  lust;  also  with  those  who  are  at 
liberty  to  introduce  themselves  into  a  legitimate  partnership  of  the  bed,  while 
they  are  young,  without  doing  injury  to  their  worldly  fortunes,  thus  under 
the  first  favorable  impressions."  He  then  alludes  to  the  difficulties  often 
occurring  on  this  score  in  the  present  world,  "  where  matrimonial  engagements 
cannot  be  contracted  till  the  season  of  youth  is  past,  and  where,  during  that 
season,  the  generality  live  within  forms  of  government,  where  a  length  of  time 
is  required  to  serve  offices,  and  to  acquire  the  property  necessary  to  support  a 
house  and  family,  and  then  first  a  worthy  wife  is  to  be  courted."  And  so  all 
along  he  gives  peculiar  prominence  to  the  fact,  that  the  most  serious  obstacles 
to  marriage  exist  with  multitudes  growing  out  of  the  governmental  polities  and 
social  systems  generally  prevalent.  Yet  still  these  multitudes  are  men.  Now  of 
all  these  considerations  we  can  only  say,  Valeant  quantum  valent — let  them  weigh 
as  much  as  they  are  entitled  to  weigh.  It  is  said  by  the  biographers  both  of  Swift  and 
of  Cowper  that  their  mental  diseases  arose  from  this  cause,  and  I  believe  that 
physicians  are  often  consulted  by  those  for  whom  they  see  that  marriage  is  the 
proper  remedy.  Yet  I  do  not  plead  any  such  necessity  as  an  excuse  for  forbid- 
den indulgence,  nor  does  Swedenborg  speak  of  such  a  resort  as  exempting  any 
man  from  reaping  the  legitimate  fruits  of  his  conduct  in  the  consequences  of  the 
transgression  of  a  general  law.  Still  I  do  not  know  that  it  militates  with  the 
higher  and  better  movements  of  the  Christian  spirit  to  allow  its  due  weight  to 
every  considercttion  which  may  fairly  go  to  alleviate  the  criminality  of  moral  acts. 
The  sexual  passion  is  in  most  men  exceedingly  strong,  and  when  the  artificial 
and  corrupt  institutions  of  society  have  interposed  barriers  to  the  lawful  mode 
of  gratifying  it,  this  fact  would  seem  at  least  to  dictate  as  mild  a  judgment  as  pos- 
sible of  the  infractions  of  a  law  the  observance  of  which  is  made  so  much  more 
difficult  by  man  than  it  is  by  God.  Even  moral  evils  growing  out  of  a  social 
constitution  in  which  power  and  wealth  are  the  all-prevailing  and  all-moi|lding 
principles,  and  where  man's  higher  interests  and  relations  are  systematically  and 
forcibly  subordinated  to  the  low,  secular,  and  sensual  aims  of  the  worldly  mind, 
demand  a  charitable  consideration.  If  we  place  ourselves  in  our  author's  circum- 
stances when  he  wrote  we  may  form  a  juster  estimate  of  what  he  wrote.  On  the 
one  hand,  he  could  not  but  be  aware  of  the  strength  and  urgency  of  the  passion  in 
question,  of  which  every  man  has  probably  a  deeper  sense  than  he  often  cares  to 
express.  On  the  other,  he  looked  abroad  over  the  face  of  society  and  saw  it  op- 
pressed by  governmental  systems  bearing  so  heavily  upon  thousands  of  the  more 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


217 


numerous  classes,  that  the  resort  to  marriage  was  frequently  next  to  impossible. 
But  a  free  scope  to  licentiousness  is  the  destruction  of  the  conjugial  principle,  and 
the  source  of  ineffable  evils.  Is  there  then  no  remedy  God  has  implanted  the 
gassion;  man  has  virtually  interdicted  its  legitimate  gratification.  The  proper^,"— _ 
exercise  of  religious  principle  would  even  in  these  circumstances  impose  the  re- 
quisite restraint ;  but  this  could  not  reasonably  be  anticipated  in  regard  to  the 
great  mass  of  men,  for  the  very  genius  of  the  despotisms  which  are  the  occa- 
sion of  the  abounding  of  sexual  immoralities  is  essentially  adverse  to  the  preva- 
lence of  true  piety.  Yet  the  civil  interests  of  all  communities  demand  that  some 
remedy  should  be  prescribed  to  the  ravages  of  lust,  ha  this  condition  of  things, 
with  a  broad  survey  and  a  benevolent  consideration  of  the  causes  which  were 
mainly  operative  in  producing  the  evil,  Swedenborg  comes  forward,  and  in  view 
of  the  certainty  that  some  men  would  be  inaccessible  to  all  higher  motives  to  con- 
tinence, suggests  an  expedient,  addressing  itself  to  lower  principles,  but  by  which 
a  host  of  evils  otherwise  inevitable  might  be  avoided,  and  the  sacred  con- 
jugial germ,  the  jewel  of  the  soul,  still  be  preserved  from  utter  extinction.  In 
doing  this  he  speaks  in  the  character  of  a  Christian  Montesquieu  unfolding  "  the 
spirit  of"  ethical "  laws,"  and  propounding  to  rulers  measures  to  check  as  far  as 
possible  the  progress  of  a  moral  pestilence  of  the  deadliest  type.  Freely  conced- 
ing that  something  higher  and  better  is  infinitely  desirable,  yet  who  will  say  that 
the  remedy  is  worse  than  the  disease,  and  who  is  entitled  to  denounce  the  pro- 
pounder,  while  he  simply  contents  himself  with  deploring  abominations  too 
mighty  for  human  conflict,  because  too  deeply  entrenched  behind  the  bulwarks 
reared  around  them  by  the  traitorous  servility  of  a  false  public  sentiment  which 
decks  itself  with  the  name  of  delicacy.  But  to  return  to  the  propositions. 
-  (12.)  "  That  therefore  in  populous  cities  public  stews  are  tolerated."  Is  not 
this  a  fact,  and  is  anything  more  than  the  fact  asserted  .'  I  will  give  the  whole 
section.  "  This  is  adduced  as  a  confirmatiom  of  the  preceding  article.  That 
they  are  tolerated  by  kings,  magistrates,  and  thence  by  judges,  inquisitors,  and 
the  people,  at  London,  Amsterdam,  Paris,  Vienna,  Venice,  and  Naples,  and  even 
at  Rome,  besides  many  other  places,  is  well  known ;  among  the  reasons  of  this 
toleration  are  those  also  abovementioned."  This  is  all.  There  is  no  absolute 
approval  of  the  toleration,  yet  there  is  doubtless  the  implication  of  a  latent  sense 
in  the  minds  of  the  rulers  of  these  countries  that  in  existing  circumstances  this  tol- 
eration is  the  least  of  two  evils.  And  here  it  will  be  proper  to  recite  the  reasons 
which  Swedenborg  specifies  as  assignable  for  the  policy  suggested.  "  That  in 
kingdoms,  where  forms  and  orders  of  government  prevail,  matrimonial  engage- 
ments cannot  be  contracted  by  many,  till  the  season  of  youth  is  past ;  for  offices 
are  first  to  be  served,  and  property  is  to  be  acquired  necessary  for  the  support  of 
a  house  and  family,  and  then  first  a  worthy  wife  is  to  be  courted ;  and  yet  in  the 
preceding  season  of  youth,  few  are  able  to  keep  the  springing  fountain  of  virtue 
closed  up,  and  reserved  for  a  wife;  it  is  better  indeed  that  it  should  be  reserved; 
but  if  this  cannot  be  done  on  account  of  the  unbridled  power  of  lust,  a  question  - 
occurs,  whether  there  may  not  be  an  intermediate  means,  whereby  conjugial 
love  may  be  prevented  from  perishmgin  the  mean  time.  That  pellicacy  is  such 
a  means,  the  following  considerations  advise :  I.  That  by  this  means  pro- 
miscuous inordinate  fornications  are  restrained  and  limited,  and  thus  a  more 
constricted  state  is  induced,  which  is  more  nearly  related  to  conjugial  life. 


218 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


II.  That  the  ardor  of  venereal  propensities,  which  in  the  beginning  isboiUng  hot, 
and  as  it  were  burning,  is  appeased  and  mitigated  ;  and  that  thereby  the  lascivi- 
ous passion  for  the  sex,  which  is  filthy,  is  tempered  by  somewhat  analogous  to 
marriage.    III.  By  this  means  too  the  strength  is  not  cast  away,  neither  are 
weaknesses  contracted,  as  by  vague  and  unlimited  amours.    IV.  By  this  means 
also  disease  of  the  body  and  insanity  of  mind,  are  avoided.    V.  In  like  manner 
by  this  means  adulteries,  which  are  whoredoms  with  wives,  and  debaucheries, 
which  are  violations  of  virgins,  are  guarded  against ;  to  say  nothing  of  such 
^criminal  acts  as  are  not  to  be  named.    VI.  Bypellicacy  neither  is  access  given  to 
/  the  four  kinds  of  lusts,  which  are  in  the  highest  degree  destructive  of  conjugial 
\  love, — the  lust  of  defloration,  the  lust  of  varieties,  the  lust  of  violation,  and  th^ 
lust  of  seducing  innocences,  which  are  treated  of  in  the  following  pages.  But 
these  observations  are  not  intended  for  those  who  can  check  the  tide  of  lust ; 
^  nor  for  those  who  can  enter  into  marriage  during  the  season  of  youth,  and  offer 
'  and  impart  to  their  wives  the  first  fruits  of  their  ability." — C.  L.  459.  Intimations 
of  this  nature  can  of  course  be  deemed  little  requisite  to  Christian  men,  who 
have  a  deeper  insight  into  the  grounds  and  sanctions  of  moral  obligation,  but 
think  for  a  moment  of  the  immense  numbers  of  those  who  know  no  such  re- 
straints, and  whom  yet  it  is  so  vastly  desirable  to  have  restrained  by  rational 
checks. 

How  far  these  reasons  have  weight,  is  feft  for  every  one  to  judge ;  but  I  know  of 
nothing  in  the  treatise  more  likely  to  encounter  reproach  than  this.  In  forming 
an  opinion  it  will  be  important  to  bear  in  mind  his  own  cautionary  remarks,  that 
"  it  is  better  that  the  fountain  of  ability  should  be  reserved,"  and  that  what  he  says 
is  "  not  said  to  those  who  are  able  to  restrain  the  heat  of  lust,  nor  to  those  who 
can  marry  early."  It  is  not  therefore  a  general  license,  but  a  provisional  expe- 
dient, founded  upon  contingent  circumstances  occurring  under  the  Divine  Pro- 
vidence, and  which  he  regards  as  calling  for  adapted  remedial  measures  of  some 
kind.  That  the  evils  which  the  measures  contemplate  are  really  of  the  most 
stupendous  magnitude,  I  think  no  one  can  deny.  That  the  universal  prevalence 
of  right  religious  sentiment  and  action  would  effectually  abolish  them,  is  equally 
beyond  dispute.  But  seeing  such  a  state  of  things  does  not  at  present  exist,  and 
is  not  soon  to  be  rationally  anticipated,  the  question  is  doubtless  a  fair  one  in 
morals,  whether  a  Christian  teacher  is  not  at  liberty  to  siiggest,  under  due  limita- 
tions and  cautions,  a  palliative  remedy  which,  though  it  does  not  accomplish  all 
that  could  be  desired,  does  yet  go  to  lessen  immensely  the  evils  at  which  it  aims. 
It  appeals  to  lower  motives  in  those  whom  it  contemplates  simply  because,  in 
their  present  state,  no  higher  motives  can  be  expected  to  reach  them.  Might 
we  not  on  the  same  principle  say  to  the  slaveholder  that  although  we  were  con- 
strained to  regard  the  system  as  entirely  wrong,  and  that  all  selling  and  buying 
of  human  beings  is  contrary  to  the  fundamental  law  of  Christianity,  yet  if  he 
could  not  be  made  to  feel  the  force  of  the  obligations  requiring  the  total  abandon- 
•  ment  of  the  traffic,  we  would  still  suggest  that  he  should  never  sell  a  slave  ex- 
cept when  he  had  good  reason  to  believe  that  he  would  be  well  treated  by  his 
master  Could  not  this  be  said  by  a  Christian  minister  without  a  virtual  surren- 
der of  his  judgment  respecting  the  moral  character  of  slavery,  and  without  a  cri- 
minal recreancy  to  the  testimony  which  he  was  called  to  bear  against  it  ?  This 
is  doubtless  a  question  involving  a  grave  general  principle  in  casuistry,  and  this 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


219 


principle  obviously  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  that  Svvedenborg  has  said  on  the 
subject  of  pellicacy.  His  doctrine  is  proclaimed  in  respect  to  a  particular  class 
of  men  in  a  peculiar  state  of  mind.  It  is  easily  capable  of  abuse ;  it  is  capable 
also  of  being  acted  upon  comparativelij  without  abuse  in  the  state  of  mind  supposed. 

If  now  it  be  replied  that  such  doctrine  is  false,  pernicious,  and  destructive  to 
the  mterests  of  religion  and  virtue,  the  question,  I  think,  may  be  proposed,  who 
will  be  likely  to  be  injured  by  being  influenced  by  it  when  viewed  in  its  alleged 
character The  charge  is  brought,  that  Svvedenborg,  under  the  claim  to  a  divine 
commission,  inculcates  a  most  lax  morality,  that  he  gives  the  reins  to  lust, 
that  he  virtually  sanctions  unlimited  indulgence.  How  is  this  teaching  to  be 
practically  productive  of  its  legitimate  results Can  it  be  without  some  kind  of 
belief  in  his  authority  as  an  illuminated  guide  to  moral  and  religious  truth But 
the  moment  this  belief  is  established  in  any  mind  a  new  and  impressive  view  of 
the  whole  subject  of  scortatory  love  is  begotten,  which  completely  nullifies  the 
force  of  any  imaginary  license  which  he  may  liave  thought  himself  to  have  found 
in  his  writings.  With  such  a  presentation  of  the  nature  and  effects  of  that  love 
as  Swedenborg  sets  before  him,  one  cannot  avail  himself  of  any  immunities  which 
he  may  fancy  held  out  to  him  without  at  once  proving  his  faith  hypocrisy.  So 
far  as  he  is  from  this  possibility,  so  far  is  your  statement  on  this  head  from  the 
truth.  "  These  are  the  directions  which  his  admirers  are  to  feel  themselves  at 
liberty  to  follow.  And  if  they  do  not  follow  them  it  is  for  some  other  reason 
than  a  regard  to  his  principles."  Nay,  verily,  it  is  for  no  other  reason  whatever ; 
for  they  cannot  even  begin  to  conceive  any  stronger  dissuasive  than  they  meet 
with  in  these  very  principles.  Thisyou  could  easily  understand  if  you  were  once 
to  put  yourself  in  possession  of  the  evidence  which  has  wrought,  in  their  minds, 
so  profound  a  conviction  of  his  truth  in  what  he  has  delivered  on  this  head. 

It  is  not  the  New  Churchman  then  whose  moral  code  or  whose  practical  con- 
duct will  be  apt  to  be  injured  by  the  exceptionable  doctrines  of  this  book.  Nor 
will  injury  be  likely  to  accrue  to  any  one  who  really  believes  in  the  tissue  of  spiritual 
developments  which  are  as  fully  brought  out  in  this  as  in  any  other  part  of  Swe- 
denborg's  writings.  Who  then  is  the  threatened  victim  to  the  disastrous  doc- 
trines of  the  "  Pleasures  of  Insanity  concerning  Scortatory  Love  .'"  Is  it  the  man, 
however  sensual  and  depraved,  who  neither  believes  nor  respects  Swedenborg 
in  his  assumed  character  of  an  illuminated  seer  ?  WOl  he  not  share  in  the  general 
estimate  of  the  man  as  a  crazed  enthusiast .'  And  are  the  utterances  of  such  a 
man  likely  to  be  pleaded  by  him  as  a  warrant  for  a  carnal  career .'  Will  they  be 
apt  to  countervail  in  any  degree  the  force  of  those  vague  and  slight,  yet  scarce- 
ly effaceable,  impressions  of  sinful  wrong,  which  in  a  Christian  country  float, 
as  it  were,  about  the  consciences  of  the  worst  of  men,  and  which  are  to  be  traced 
to  the  moral  sphere  emanating  from  the  Bible  The  matter  then,  as  it  strikes  me, 
is  reduced  to  a  very  narrow  compass.  If  a  man  really  believes  that  Swedenborg 
speaks  on  this  subject  with  authority,  he  cannot  be  injured  by  what  he  says ;  if  he 
does  not  believe  this,  he  will  not ;  for  what  reason  can  be  assigned  why  any  one 
should  be  influenced  by  a  reputed  license  to  do  wrong  when  he  sees  no  cre- 
dentials of  authority  in  the  licenser 

But  if  neither  the  adopters  nor  the  rejectors  of  Swedenborg's  doctrines  on  this 
head  are  liable  to  be  practically  influenced  by  them,  for  what  purpose  were  they 
given Upon  what  class  of  men  are  they  designed  to  bear Is  not  a  great  amount 


220 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


of  logical  and  casuistical  refinement  thrown  away  ?  I  am  not  sure  that  I  shall 
answer  this  question  precisely  in  the  manner  in  which  it  would  be  answered  by 
most  of  my  brethren  in  the  faith,  but  I  can  see  for  myself  an  important  end  ac- 
complished by  enabling  us  to  form  a  proper  estimate  of  the  evils  in  question.  His 
teachings  elevate  us  to  a  region  whence  we  can  look  down  upon  the  field  before 
us,  and  intelligently  contemplate  the  workings  of  the  Divine  Providence  in  regard 
to  men  of  all  classes  and  characters,  and  as  prompted  by  all  kinds  of  motives. 
In  this  survey  we  are  enabled  to  perceive  that  according  to  the  state  of  mind  and 
the  force  of  circumstances  in  which  actions  are  put  forth  by  merely  natural  men, 
they  are  marked  by  various  degrees  of  criminality,  and  are  therefore  to  have  ac- 
corded to  them  various  degrees  of  toleration  in  the  legislative  and  judicial  econo- 
mies which  come  into  the  grand  system  of  moral  machinery,  by  which  an  all- 
wise  Providence  governs  the  world.  There  is  indeed  an  ulterior  kingdom,  com- 
posed of  spiritual  men,  and  under  the  direct  governance  of  spiritual  laws,  which 
brook  no  kno\vn  infractions  by  their  subjects ;  but  there  is  also  an  external  king- 
dom, composed  of  worldly  men,  unsusceptible  in  their  present  state  of  being  con- 
trolled by  the  highest  class  of  motives,  but  whose  welfare  is  yet  regarded  by  the 
Universal  Father,  and  whose  policies  are  secretly  overruled  by  the  Divine  Wisdom 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  prevent  the  extinction  of  all  order  and  of  all-evH,  and 
social  good.  This  end  is  sometimes  attained  by  the  permission  of  a  lesser  evil 
m  order  to  the  warding  off"  of  a  greater,  and  the  present  moral  state  of  the  agents, 
which  is  evermore  exquisitely  perceived  and  regarded  by  the  Lord,  being  such 
as  to  prevent  the  peril  of  profanation,  we  can  see  the  quality  of  the  permission. 
Without  the  least  stain  to  his  own  inunaculate  rectitude,  the  Most  High  looks  into 
without  entering  into,  necessitating,  or  patronizing  the  allowed  volitions  and 
actions  of  his  free  creatures,  and  in  another  life  will  judge,  by  active  imputation, 
and  with  unerring  justice,  the  moral  character  of  the  one  and  the  other.  The 
spiritual  man,  who  is  truely  conjoined  to  the  Lord  in  his  affection,  is  gifted 
with  some  measure  of  his  own  divine  perception  of  motives  and  ends.  He 
looks  forth  from  his  elevated  interior  sphere  into  this  exterior  kingdom  of  provi- 
dence, somewhat  as  the  soul  contemplates  the  things  of  its  body,  and  judges 
of  whatever  is  below  it,  while  it  remains  itself  unjudged  except  by  the  Omnis- 
,  cient.  In  the  more  advanced  state  of  things  in  the  present  world  which  Swe- 
denborg's  system  all  along  interiorly  respects,  I  have  little  doubt  that  civil  rulers 
will  see  in  his  developments  a  measure  of  judgment  by  which  they  shall  be 
governed  in  administering  the  interests  of  justice  among  men,  and  that  too  with- 
out compromising  the  demands  of  a  more  spiritual  law  applicable  to  spiritual 
men.  Just  in  proportion  as  the  conjugial  element  of  our  nature  shall  rise  in 
general  appreciation,  will  be  the  estimate  formed  of  the  provisions  suggested 
for  its  preservation. 

The  course  of  discussion  brings  me  to  the  consideration  of  another  department 
of  the  general  subject  of  Scortatory  Love— that  of  Concubinage,  in  regard  to 
which  you  remark : 

"  With  a  most  remarkable  philanthropy,  he  extends  his  care  over  the  conjugal 
state,  and  makes  provision,  which  will  be  welcome  to  a  certain  class  of  men, 
for  cases  which  not  unfrequently  occur.  He  objects  strongly  to  a  man's  cohabit- 
ing with  a  wife  and  a  mistress  at  the  same  time.  But  if  men  have  what  he  calls 
'  legitimate,  just,  and  truly  conscientious  causes  to  separate  themselves  and  keep 
apart  from  a  wife  as  to  actual  love,'  he  allows  them  '  to  have  another  woman 
in  keeping.'    He  specifies  a  variety  of  tliese  causes,  that  is,  causes  for  keeping 


I 

I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


221 


apart  from  a  wife  and  having  a  mistress ;  such  as  vitiated  states  of  the  wife's 
body,  fevers,  leprosies,  cancers, — offensive  diseases  inward  or  outward,  especi- 
ally those  which  defile  the  face,  faintness  epilepsy,  rupture,  &c.— also  intemper- 
ance, telling  family  secrets,  disputing,  striking,  internal  dissimilitude,  antipathy, 
coldness,  &c.  hi  these  cases,  a  man  may  very  justly  and  conscientiously  sepa- 
rate himself  from  his  diseased  and  suffering,  or  offending  wife,  and  keep  a  mis- 
tress. And  our  author  goes  still  further,  and  palliates  the  crime  of  adultery  in 
other  circumstances;  namely, '  when  a  wife  by  craftiness  captivates  a  man's 
mind,  enticing  him  into  her  bed-chamber,  and  inflaming  his  passions,'  or  when 
a  man  entices  another  man's  wife,  and  inflames  her  passions.  These  and  like 
circumstances,  he  says, — operate  as  reasonable  apologies  in  favor  of  the  party 
seduced." — p.  149. 

The  only  reply  to  this  is  to  be  drawn  from  a  full  and  accurate  exhibition  of 
what  Swedenborg  has  said  on  the  subject  of  the  concubinary  relation,  especially 
as  viewed  by  the  light  of  his  general  doctrine  concerning  the  conjugial  princi- 
ple, apart  from  which  it  cannot  be,  by  any  means,  properly  appreciated.  And, 
first,  let  it  be  observed  that  he  lays  it  down  in  several  propositions,  that  "con- 
cubinage conjointly  with  a  wife  is  unlawful  to  Christians,  and  detestable" — that 
"  it  is  polygamy,  which  is  condemned,  and  to  ba  condemned,  by  the  Chris- 
tian world" — that  it  is  "  unlawful  because  it  is  against  the  conjugial  covenant ;  and 
that  it  is  detestable,  because  it  is  against  religion,  and  what  is  against  the  latter 
and  at  the  same  time  against  the  former,  is  against  the  Lord"— that  "  as  soon  as 
any  one,  without  real  sufficient  cause,  adjoins  a  concubine  to  a  wife,  heaven  is 
closed  to  him,  and  by  the  angels  he  is  no  more  numbered  amongst  Christians." 
He  then  proceeds  to  state,  that  concubinage  apart  from  the  wife,  when  engaged 
in  from  just,  legitimate,  and  truly  sufficient  causes  is  not  illicit.  In  the  dis- 
tinct specification  of  these  causes,  he  classes  them  under  three  heads,  the  first 
of  which  he  terms  legitimate,  as  being  identical  with  the  causes  that  warrant 
divorce  understood  as  the  abolition  of  the  conjugial  covenant,  and  thence  ple- 
nary separation,  leaving  the  man  at  entire  liberty  to  marry  another  wife.  The  sole 
cause  of  this  total  separation,  or  divorce,  he  says, "  is  scortation,  according  to  the  • 
precept  of  the  Lord,  Matt.  xix.  9.  That  scortation  is  the  sole  cause  of  divorce,  is 
because  it  is  diametrically  opposite  to  the  life  of  conjugial  love,  and  destroys  it  even 
to  extinction."  He  then  goes  on  to  observe  that  there  may  be  cases  where,  although 
actual  ground  for  plenary  divorce  exists,  yet  particular  reasons  may  operate  for 
"  retaining  the  adulterous  wife  at  home."  A  number  of  such  reasons  he  particu- 
larly recites,  which  it  is  not  necessary  here  to  mention.  The  fact  however  of  the 
scortation  actually  dissolves  the  vinculum  matrimonii,  and  the  man  is  therefore  left 
in  circumstances  that  release  him  from  any  marriage  tie  which  would  stand  in  the 
way  of  such  permitted  cohabitation  as  might  take  place  if  he  had  never  been 
married  at  all.  Concubinage  then  with  him  would  be  but  another  name  for  the 
pellicacy  already  treated  of,  and  the  requisite  conditions  of  which  have  been 
distinctly  stated.  But  the  point  especially  to  be  noted  in  this  connection  is,  that 
the  legitimate  causes  of  plenary  divorce  are  the  legitimate  causes  of  concubinage 
or,  in  other  words,  of  pellicacy,  which  concubinage  in  this  instance  becomes. 
These  causes  however  are  to  be  established  "  by  the  edicts  of  judges,"  that  is, 
decided  and  proclaimed  by  the  proper  courts  of  law,  and  not  left  to  his  own 
private  or  personal  adjudication.  This  is  the  first  head  of  the  causes  of  concu- 
binage, and  no  one,  I  think,  can  deny  that  if  there  are  any  legitimate  causes  for 
such  a  relation,  the  legitimate  causes  for  a  full  divorce  are  among  them. 


222 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


But  he  remarks  farther,  that  in  addition  to  what  he  terms  legitimate  there  are 
also  lis/ causes  of  coucubinage,  which  are  to  be  adjudged  by  the  man  alone, 
acting  however  under  the  influence  of  sound  and  conscientious  principles.  These 
causes  are  the  "just  causes  of  separation  from  the  bed,"  while  at  the  same  time, 
the  conjugal  bond  is  not  dissolved,  nor  the  wife  abandoned,  nor  any  of  the 
domestic  duties  of  a  husband  relaxed  or  intermitted,  except  it  be  a  case,  for  in- 
stance, like  that  of  confirmed  lunacy  or  idiocy,  where  a  wife  is  removed  to  a 
hospital  or  asylum.  In  the  following  paragraphs  are  enumerated  at  considera- 
ble length  the  causes  of  thoral^separationand  consequent  concubinage,  which  he 
denominates  jus^,  and  of  which  every  man  is  to  judge  for  himself  in  the  fear  of 
God.    I  quote  from  "  Conj.  Love,"  251-254. 

"  There  are  given  separations  from  the  bed  and  separations  from  the  house ; 
the  causes  of  separation  from  the  bed  are  numerous,  equally  so  are  the  separa- 
tions from  the  house ;  but  here  it  is  treated  of  legitimate  ones.  (In  the  subsequent 
treatise  he  terms  these  causes  jmt.)  Since  the  causes  of  separation  coincide 
with  the  causes  of  concubinage,  concerning  which  in  the  following  part  of  this 
work,  in  its  own  chapter,  therefore  the  reader  is  referred  thither  that  he  may  see 
the  causes  in  their  order.  The  legitimate  causes  of  separation  are  those  which 
follow. 

"  That  the  first  cause  of  legitimate  separation  is  a  vitiated  state  of  mind. 
The  reason  of  this  is,  because  conjugial  love  is  a  conjunction  of  minds;  where- 
fore if  the  mind  of  one  of  the  parties  takes  a  direction  different  from  that  of  the 
other,  such  conjunction  is  dissolved,  and  with  the  conjunction  the  love  vanishes. 
The  states  of  vitiation  of  the  mind,  which  cause  separation,  may  appear  from 
enumerating  them,  and  which  for  the  most  part  are  as  follow :  madness,  frenzy, 
furious  wildness,  actual  foolishness  and  idiotcy,  loss  of  memory,  violent  hyster- 
ics, extreme  silliness  so  as  to  admit  of  no  perception  of  good  and  truth,  a  high 
degree  of  stubbornness  in  refusing  to  obey  what  is  just  and  equitable  ;  a  high 
degree  of  pleasure  in  talkativeness  and  discoursing  only  on  insignificani  and 
trifling  subjects;  an  unbridled  desire  to  publish  family  secrets,  also  to  quarrel, to 
strike,  to  take  revenge,  to  do  evil,  to  steal,  to  tell  lies,  to  deceive,  to  blaspheme ; 
carelessness  about  the  children,  intemperance,  luxury,  excessive  prodigality, 
drunkenness,  uncleanness,  immodesty,  application  to  magic  and  witchcraft,  im- 
piety, with  several  other  causes.  By  legitimate  causes  are  not  here  meant  judi- 
cial causes,  but  such  as  are  legitimate  in  regard  to  the  other  married  partner. 

"  That  the  second  cause  of  legitimate  separation  is  a  vitiated  state  of  body. 
By  vitiated  states  of  body  are  not  meant  accidental  diseases,  which  happen  to 
either  of  the  married  partners  within  the  time  of  their  marriage,  and  pass  away; 
but  by  vitiated  states  of  body  are  meant  inherent  diseases,  which  do  not  pass 
away.  The  science  of  pathology  teaches  what  these  are.  They  are  manifold, 
such  as  diseases  whereby  the  whole  body  is  so  far  infected,  that  the  contagion 
may  prove  fatal ;  of  this  nature  are  malignant  and  pestilential  fevers,  leprosies, 
the  venereal  disease,  gangrenes,  cancers,  and  the  like;  also  diseases  whereby  the 
whole  body  is  so  far  weighed  down,  as  to  admit  of  no  consociability,  and  from 
which  exhale  dangerous  effluvia  and  noxious  vapors,  whetlier  from  the  surface 
of  the  body,  or  from  its  inward  parts,  hi  particular  from  the  stomach  and  lungs : 
from  the  surface  of  the  body  proceed  malignant  pocks,  warts,  pustules,  scorbu- 
tic phthisic,  virulent  scab,  especially  if  the  face  be  defiled  thereby :  from  the 
stomach  proceed  foul,  fetid,  rank,  and  crude  eructations :  from  the  lungs,  filthy 
and  putrid  exhalations,  arising  from  imposthumes,  ulcers,  abscesses,  or  from 
vitiated  blood  or  lymph  therein.  Besides  these  there  are  also  various  other  dis- 
eases, as  lipothamia,  which  is  a  total  faintness  of  body  and  defect  of  strength  ; 
paralysis,  which  is  a  loosing  and  relaxation  of  the  membranes  and  ligaments 
which  serve  for  motion ;  certain  chronical  diseases,  arising  from  a  loss  of  the 
sensibility  and  elasticity  of  the  nerves,  or  from  too  great  a  thickness,  tenacity, 
and  acrimony  of  the  humors;  epilepsy;  fixed  weakness  arising  from  apople.xy; 
certain  phthisical  complaints,  whereby  the  body  is  wasted ;  the  cholic,  cailiac 
affection,  rupture,  and  other  like  diseases. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


223 


"  That  the  third  cause  of  legitimate  separation  is  impotence  before  marriage. 
The  reason  why  this  is  a  cause  of  separation  is,  because  the  end  of  marriage  is 
the  procreation  of  children,  which  cannot  take  place  wliere  this  cause  of  separa- 
tion operates ;  and  as  this  is  foreknown  by  the  parties,  they  are  deliberately  de- 
prived of  the  hope  of  it,  which  hope  nevertheless  nourishes  and  strengthens 
tlieir  conjugial  love." 

The  remaining  class  of  causes  are  what  he  terms  sontictt,  or  vere  sontica,  which 
although  rendered  in  the  earlier  translation  of  the  "  Conjugial  Love,"  conscientious, 
and  truly  conscientious,  are  undoubtedly  more  correctly  represented  by  sufficient  or 
valid,  a  rendering  which  has  been  adopted  in  the  later  revised  American  edition. 
These  are  thus  specified,  with  preliminary  remarks. 

"  That  the  sufficient  causes  of  this  coNeuBiNAGE,  are  real  and  not  real. 
Since  besides  just  causes  which  are  just  causes  of  separation,  and  thence  be- 
come just  causes  of  concubinage,  there  are  also  sufficient  causes,  which  de- 
pend on  judgment  and  justice  with  the  man ;  therefore  these  also  are  to  be  men- 
tioned :  but  as  the  judgments  of  justice  may  be  perverted  and  be  converted  by 
confirmations  into  the  appearances  of  what  is  just,  therefore  these  causes  are 
distinguished  into  sufficient  causes  real  and  not  real,  and  are  described  sepa- 
rately 

"  That  the  real  sufficient  causes  are  such  as  are  grounded  in  what  is  just. 
To  know  these  causes,  it  may  be  sufficient  to  recount  some  of  them;  such  as 
no  natural  affection  ta*vards  children,  and  a  consequent  rejection  of  them,  in- 
temperance, drunkenness,  uncleanness,  immodesty,  a  desire  of  promulgating 
family  secrets,  of  disputing,  of  strikmg,  of  taking  revenge,  of  doing  evil,  of  steal- 
ing, of  deceiving;  internal  dissimilitude,  whence  comes  antipathy;  froward  re- 
quirement of  the  conjugial  debt,  whence  the  man  becomes  a  cold  stone  ;  appli- 
cation to  magic  and  witchcraft;  an  extreme  degree  of  impiety;  and  other  srnii- 
lar  evils." 

Aware,  however,  of  the  strength  of  corrupt  nature  and  the  tendency  of  its 
pleadings  to  falsify  and  sophisticate  sound  principles,  he  proceeds  to  designate 
the  not  real  or  fictitious  causes  which  men  would  be  very  apt  to  assign  to  them- 
selves byway  of  justifying  a  conduct  prompted  by  passion  and  at  war  with 
morality  and  religion. 

"  That  causes  sufficient  not  real  are  such  as  are  not  grounded  in  what  is 
just,  although  in  the  appearance  or  what  is  just.  .  These  are  known  from  the 
sufficient  real  causes  above  mentioned,  and,  if  not  rightly  explored,  may  ap- 
pear as  just,  and  yet  are  unjust ;  as  that  times  of  abstmence  are  required  after 
the  bringing  forth  of  children,  transitory  sicknesses  of  wives,  from  these  and 
other  causes  a  check  to  prolification,  polygamy  permitted  to  the  Israelites,  and 
other  like  causes  of  no  weight  as  grounded  hi  justice.  These  are  fabricated  by 
the  men  after  the  contracting  of  cold,  when  unchaste  lusts  have  deprived  them 
of  conjugial  love,  and  have  infatuated  them  with  an  idea  of  its  likeness  to  scor- 
tatory  love.  Such  men,  when  they  engage  m  concubinage,  to  prevent  defama- 
tion, make  such  spurious  and  fallacious  causes  real  and  genuine,  and  very  fre- 
quently also  forge  and  charge  them  against  the  wife,  their  companions,  assent- 
ing to  ami  re-echoing  them  according  to  favor." — C.  L.  474. 

I  have  now  stated  the  grounds  on  which  is  built  the  proposition,  that  concubi- 
nage apart  from  a  wife,  when,  engaged  in  from  causes  legitimate,  just,  and  truly  suffi- 
cient, is  not  illicit.  The  bare  announcement  of  this  proposition  is  undoubtedly 
calculated  to  occasion  a  shock  to  the  prevailing  sentiments  of  the  Christian 
world,  and  perhaps  to  a  degree  that  may  close  the  mind  against  even  any  at- 
tempted explanation  of  what  is  really  and  truly  intended  by  it.  The  very  term  con- 
cubine awakens  at  once  a  train  of  revolting  associations,  and  the  idea  of  any  pos- 


224 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


sible  form  of  toleration  allowed  to  this  kind  of  sexual  relation  operates  with  a 
species  of  torpedo  touch  upon  all  the  virtuous  sensibilities  of  the  bosom  in 
which  piety  and  refined  intelligence  have  found  a  home.  The  spontaneous 
verdict  is  prone  to  be,  that  nothing — not  a  syllable — can  be  uttered  in  its  defence 
without  meeting  an  instant  repulse  and  condemnation  from  the  spirit  which 
has  been  formed  by  the  pure  precepts  of  Christianity,  or  without  betraying,  on 
the  part  of  the  utterer,  an  open  or  latent  design  to  sap  the  very  foundation  of 
everything  lovely  and  of  good  report  in  the  sphere  of  life's  tenderest  and  most 
hallowed  relations.  I  should  be  sorry  to  think  that  I  faUed  in  any  measure  to 
appreciate  the  value  of  such  sentiments,  or  that  I  had  assumed  the  advocacy  of 
doctrines  which  went  legitimately  to  disturb  or  outrage  them.  But  T  have  ven- 
tured to  think  it  possible  so  to  present  the  views  advanced  by  Swedenborg  as  to 
divest  them  of  that  character  of  extreme  repugnancy  to  preconceived  ideas  with 
which  they  at  first  blush  array  themselves  before  the  mind.  And  to  this  end  I 
observe, 

(1.)  That  it  is  proper  to  refer  everything  said  on  this  head  to  the  general  aim 
and  object  of  the  whole  book,  which  is  to  elevate  and  Cbnsecrate  the  conjugial 
principle  and  the  conjugial  relation  above  all  the  ordinary  estimates  which  have 
ever  been  formed  on  the  subject.  It  is  impossible,  I  think,  to  doubt  that  this  is 
our  author's  real  and  supreme  intention,  and  that  everything  he  has  said  on  the 
opposite  or  scortatory  principle  is  designed  to  act,  in  a  reflex  way,  in  heighten- 
ing our  conceptions  of  the  superlative  worth  and  excellence  of  that  element  of 
oiu:  being  to  which  it  stands  opposed.  In  the  endeavor  to  compass  this  end  it 
may  be  said  that  he  has  enlisted  false  principles — that  he  is  inconsistent  with 
himself — that  his  reasoning  destroys  his  conclusions — and  that  consequently  the 
results  are  not  only  fallacious,  but  pernicious.  This  remains  to  be  seen ;  but 
what  I  at  present  insist  upon  is,  that  the  entire  drift  of  his  discussion  in  the  body 
of  the  work,  as  well  as  innumerable  passages  in  his  other  writings,  cannot  in 
fairness  be  otherwise  viewed  than  as  aiming  at  a  good  end  or,  m  other  words, 
as  evincing  a  good  intention.  If  notwithstanding  he  can  be  shown,  on  adequate 
grounds,  to  have  been  mistaken,  the  mistake,  I  should  suppose,  may  still  be 
affirmed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  leave  unimpaired  all  the  credit  due  to  a  worthy 
and  unexceptionable  object. 

(2.)  It  is  to  be  constantly  borne  in  mind  that  Swedenborg  plants  himself  most 
distinctly  and  emphatically  on  Scripture  ground  in  maintaining  but  one  sufficient 
cause  of  plenary  divorce,  viz.  that  of  adultery.  It  is  impossible  for  language  to 
be  more  explicit  than  that  which  he  employs  on  this  head.  He  caimot,  there- 
fore, be  justly  charged  with  teaching  doctrines  that  go  to  countenance  a  light 
esteem  of  the  legal  bond  of  matrimony,  or  to  favor  a  facility  in  obtaining  release 
from  its  obligations.  This  is  still  more  evident  from  the  following  paragraph 
from  another  work  which  is  palpably  the  language  of  a  very  serious  mind. 
"  From  what  has  been  said  it  may  without  difficulty  be  concluded  and  seen, 
whether  a  man  be  a  Christian  or  not,  yea,  whether  he  has  any  religion  or  not :  for 
whosoever  does  not  regard  adulteries  as  sins,  in  faith  and  life,  is  not  a  Christian, 
neither  has  he  any  religion.  But  on  the  other  hand,  whosoever  shuns  adulteries 
as  sins,  especially  if  he  holds  them  in  aversion  by  reason  of  their  being  sins,  and 
still  more,  if  he  abominates  them  on  that  account,  has  rehgion,  and  if  he  be  in 
(the  Christian  Church,  ia  a  Christian." — Boct.  of  Life,  77. 


ft 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  225 

<3.)  It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  a  correct  idea  should  be  formed  of 
what  Swedonborg  vindcrstands  by  the  concubinage  of  which  he  speaks,  and  of  its 
true  relation  to  the  conjugal  union.    In  our  common  parlance  a  concubine  is  little'' 
less  than  a  harlot,  but  the  term  has  not  that  opprobrious  sense  in  the  sacred  writ-J 
ings,  where  it  is  used  to  denote  a  lawful  wife,  but  of  secondary  rank,  one  who! 
enjoyed  no  conjugal  right  but  that  of  cohabitation,  and  whom  the  husband  coulil] 
repudiate  and  send  away  with  a  small  present.    The  concubine  of  Swedenborg? 
however,  is  not  properly  a  wife,  as  this  would  be  -polygamy  which  he  pointedly 
condemns  as  illicit  to  Christians  under  any  circumstances  whatever,  as  being 
directly  subversive  of  the  true  conjugal  relation  which  can  only  subsist  between 
two.  VThe  nature  of  these  secondary  marriages  and  the  grounds  of  the  permis- 
sion on  which  they  were  founded,  are  thus  unfolded  by  him  in  the  commentary 
on  Gen.  xxv.  5,  6. 

"  In  order  that  both  the  celestial  and  the  spiritual  might  be  represented  in 
marriages  formerly,  it  was  allowed  besides  a' wife  to  have  also  a  concubine ; 
such  concubine  was  given  to  the  husband  by  the  wife,  and  was  then  called  his 
woman,  or  was  said  to  be  given  to  him  for  a  woman,  as  when  Hagar  the  Egyp- 
tian was  given  to  Abraham  by  Sarah,  when  Bilhah  the  handmaid  was  given  to 
Jacob  by  Rachel,  and  the  handmaid  Silpah  given  to  Jacob  by  Leah,  where  they 
are  called  women,  but  in  other  places  concubines,  as  Hagar  the  Egyptian  in  this 
verse,  and  Bilhah,  also  Keturah  herself.  That  these  ancients  had  concubines  be- 
sides a  wife,  as  not  only  Abraham  and  Jacob,  but  also  their  posterity,  as  Gideon, 
Saul,  David,  and  Solomon,  was  of  permission,  for  the  sake  of  representation,  viz., 
of  the  celestial  church  by  a  wife,  and  of  the  spiritual  church  by  a  concubine  ; 
it  was  of  permission,  because  they  were  such  that  they  had  no  conjugial  love, 
thus  neither  was  marriage  to  them  marriage,  but  only  carnal  copulation  for  the 
sake  of  procreating  offspring,  and  to  such  there  might  be  permissions,  without 
the  injury  of  conjugial  love  and  the  covenant  thence  derived,  but  in  nowise  to 
those  who  are  in  good  and  in  truth,  and  who  are  internal  men  or  can  become 
so  ;  for  as  soon  as  man  is  in  good  and  truth,  and  in  things  internal,  such  things 
cease ;  hence  it  is  not  allowable  for  Christians,  as  for  Jews,  to  take  to  themselves 
a  concubine  with  a  wife,  and  that  this  is  adultery." — A.  C.  3246. 

From  this  it  appears  very  evident  that  what  may  be  termed  the  license  of  con-  ■ 
cubinage  is  not  granted  by  him  to  real  Christians,  or  men  in  a  spiritual  state  of 
mind,  hut  permissively  to  those  who  have  not  yet  advanced  beyond  the  state  of 
natural  men.  I  am  aware  that  the  propriety  of  any  such  species  of  teaching  on 
the  part  of  a  Christian  will  be  vehemently  protested  against,  but  as  I  have  already 
dwelt  upon  this  point  and  may  advert  to  it  again  in  the  sequel,  I  wave  all  dis- 
cussion at  present,  and  proceed  to  remark,  that  Svvedenborg  alone  has  drawn 
the  true  distinction  between  concubinage  and  polygamy,  the  former  of  which  was^ 
permissively  granted  to  the  sons  of  Jacob,  and  the  latter  to  the  sons  of  Ishmael. 
Polygamy  is  a  kind  of  diffusion  or  dissolution  of  the  conjugial  love  over  the  sex 
in  general,  whereby  it  in  fact  loses  its  peculiar  distinctive  character,  and  is  re- 
solved into  a  mere  prompting  of  lasciviousness.  "  The  reason  is,  because  the 
love  thereof  is  divided  amongst  several,  and  is  the  love  of  the  sex,  and  the  love 
of  the  external  or  natural  man,  and  this  is  not  conjugial  love,  which  aione\  s 
given  chaste.  That  polygamical  love  is  a  love  divided  amongst  several,  is  a 
known  thing,  and  divided  love  is  not  conjugial  love,  for  this  latter  love  is  not  to 
be  divided  from  one  of  the  sex,  hence  the  former  love  is  lascivious,  and  poly- 
gamy is  lasciviousness."  (C.  .L  345).  He  accordingly  affirms  that  "  with  poly- 
gamists  conjugial  chastity,  purity,  and  sanctity  cannot  be  given,  nor  can  a  poly- 
gamist,  so  long  as  he  remams  a  polygamist,  be  made  spiritual."  Polygamy, 
15 


226 


EEPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


however,  is  permissively  allowed  to  the  Mahometans  because  love  "truly  corq'u- 
gial  which  subsists  only  between  one  man  and  one  wife,  could  not  be  given,  inas- 
much as  they  do  no  not,  from  a  religious  principle,  acknowledge  the  Lord  (i.  e. 
Christ)  as  equal  to  God  the  Father,  and  thus  as  the  God  of  heaven  and  earth." 
He  also  in  the  same  connection  lays  down  the  following  principles,  which  will 
be  seen  to  have  an  important  bearing  upon  the  whole  subject,  particularly  so 
far  as  moral  conduct  is  related  to  the  prevailing  state  of  mind  of  the  agent. 

*  "  That  polygamy  is  not  sin  with  those  who  live  in  it  from  a  religious  prin- 
ciple. All  that  which  is  contrary  to  religion  is  believed  to  be  sin,  because  it  is 
contrary  to  God  ;  and  on  the  other  .hand,  all  that  which  agrees  with  religion,  is 
believed  not  to  be  sin,  because  it  agrees  with  God ;  and  as  polygamy  existed 
with  the  sons  of  Israel  from  a  principle  of  religion,  and  in  like  manner  at  this 
day  with  the  Mahometans,  it  could  not,  and  cannot,  be  imputed  to  them  as  sin. 

'JVIoreover,  to  prevent  its  being  sin  to  them,  they  remain  natural,  and  do  not  be- 
come spiritual ;  and  the  natural  man  cannot  see  that  there  is  aiiythuig  of  sin  in 
such  thuigs  as  appertain  to  received  religion;  this  is  seen  only  by  the  spiritual 
man.  It  is  on  this  account,  that  although  the  Mahometans  are  taught  by  the  Al- 
coran to  acknowledge  our  Lord  as  the  son  of  God,  still  they  do  not  come  to  him, 
but  to  Mahomet;  and  so  long  they  remain  natural,  and  consequently  do  not 
know  that  there  is  in  polygamy  any  evil,  nor  indeed  any  lasciviousness.  The 
Lord  also  saith,  'J/  ye  were  blind  ye  xuoidd  not  have  sin ;  but  noiv  you  say  we  see, 
therefore  your  sin  remaineth'  (John  ix.  41).  Since  polygamy  cannot  convict  them 
of  sm,  therefore  after  death  they  have  their  heavens,  n.  343 ;  and  therein  have 
joys  according  to  their  life, 

"  That  polygamy  is  not  sin  with  those  who  are  in  ignorance  concerning  the 
Lord.  This  is,  because  love  truly  conjugial  is  from  the  Lord  only,  and  cannot 
be  imparted  by  the  Lord  to  any  others  than  those  who  know  him,  acknowledge 
him,  believe  on  him,  and  live  the  life  which  is  from  him;  and  those  to  whom 
that  love  cannot  be  imparted,  know  no  other  than  that  the  love  of  the  sex  and 
conjugial  love  are  the  same  thing ;  consequently  also  polygamy.  Add  to  this, 
that  polygamists,  who  know  nothing  of  the  Lord,  remain  natural:  for  a  man  is 
made  spiritual  only  from  the  Lord  ;  and  that  is  not  imputed  to  the  natural  man 
as  sin,  which  is  according  to  the  laws  of  religion  and  at  the  same  time  of  so- 
ciety :  he  also  acts  according  to  his  reason ;  and  the  reason  of  the  natural  man  is 
in  mere  darkness  respecting  love  truly  conjugial ;  and  this  love  in  excellence  is 
spiritual.  Nevertheless  the  reason  of  polygamists  is  taught  from  experience, 
that  both  public  and  private  peace  require,  that  promiscuous  lust  in  general 
should  be  restrained,  and  be  left  to  every  one  within  his  own  house :  hence 
comes  polygamy." — C.  L.  348,  349. 

More  will  probably  be  said  upon  this  pomt  hereafter.  At  present  I  remark 
that  polygamy,  strictly  speaking,  is  a  divided  bestowment  of  whatever  conjugal 
love  a  man  has  upon  several  objects  instead  of  one.  Concubinage,  strictly  speak- 
ing, is  a  separation  or  segregatioi/ of  the  true  conjugial  principle,  which  is  in- 
wardly stored  up  in  the  mind,  and  the  allotment  of  the  merely  external  and  sen- 
sual principle,  from  motives  of  physical  necessity,  to  the  person  of  a  succuha  lecti, 
or  substituted  partner  of  the  bed.  The  propriety  of  this  relation  will  of  course  be 
judged  of  according  to  the  validity  of  the  reasons  urging  it,  and  according  to  the 
state  of  mind  of  the  parties  having  recourse  to  it.  The  positions  advanced  in  the 
preceding  extracts  are  certainly  entitled  to  enter  into  the  estimate  formed  of  the 
morale  of  such  connections,  while  the  very  fact  that  a  man  is  able  lo  appreciate 
them,  renders  any  practical  decision  in  regard  to  his  own  case  extremely  peril- 
ous ;  for  it  supposes  his  understanding  to  be  elevated  out  of  its  native  darkness 
into  a  degree  of  rational  and  moral  light  which  confers  a  higher  responsibility 
on  all  his  acts. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS.  227 

Still  it  must  be  said  that  your  representations  on  the  subject  give  a  very  dis- 
torted view  of  the  teachings  of  Swedenborg.  The  concubinage  of  which  he 
speaks,  and  which,  under  the  specified  conditions,  he  declares  not  to  be  il- 
licit, is  the  farthest  possible  remove  from  an  authorized  sundering  of  the  rela- 
tion between  husband  and  wife,  or  an  exemption  from  the  discharge  of  its  du- 
ties. The  impression  which  would  be  naturally  conveyed  of  his  teaching  by  the 
following  extract  from  your  work  is  exceedingly  wide  of  the  truth. 

"  And  shall  I  advert  again  to  the  other  case A  man  has  a  wife,  whom  he 
has  solemnly  promised  and  vowed  to  love  and  cherish  and  comfort  while  life 
lasts.  She  is  the  wife  of  his  youth,  his  faithful,  affectionate  partner,  and  the 
loving  mother  of  his  children.  But  she  is  visited  with  painful  and  exhausting 
sickness,  it  may  be  with  fever,  or  cancer,  or  epilepsy,  or  paralysis,  or  consump- 
tion. Her  low  and  suffermg  state  calls  for  the  kindest  attentions  and  the  tender- 
est  sympathy  of  her  husband.  But  instead  of  these  kind  and  solicitous  attentions 
and  this  tender  sympathy  towards  his  innocent  and  faithful,  but  suffering  wife,  he 
is  to  turn  away  from  her  to  enjoy  the  society  of  a  kept  mistress  !  What  shall  we 
say  to  these  things Why,  if  a  book  containing  these  principles  should  be  pub- 
lished in  Massachusetts,  the  author  would  be  liable  to  punishment  for  violating 
the  wholesome  laws  of  the  Commonwealth." — p.  152. 

If  such  an  indictment  were  drawn  up  against  the  real  purport  of  Swedenborg's 
doctrine  on  this  subject,  it  would  be  simply  upon  this  ground — that  in  cases 
where  the  physical  or  mental  condition  of  a  wife  was  such  as  to  preclude  entirely 
the  possibility  of  that  connubial  commerce  which  enters  so  deeply  into  the  de- 
sign and  the  dehghts  of  marriage,  an  emergency  arises  for  which,  as  some  provi- 
sion is  naturally  felt  to  be  desirable,  so  it  is  suggested  in  the  temporary  expe- 
dient, which,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  is  here  denominated  concubinage.  It  is  an 
expedient  suggested  by  the  fact,  that  the  causes  which  incapacitate  a  wiie  from 
rendering  that  "  due  benevolence  "  to  a  partner  which  he  may  properly  seek,  still 
leave  the  husband  under  the  full  promptings  of  a  constitutional  appetite  which 
craves  the  indulgence  that  was  among  the  lawful  motives  to  marriage.  These 
promptings,  however  strong,  he  had  no  thought  of  gratifying  in  any  other  than 
the  appointed  way  so  long  as  the  opportunity  remained  to  him.  He  cherishes 
tlie  most  unfeigned  and  devoted  affection  for  his  suffering  companion.  He  re- 
laxes in  no  duty  of  the  most  tender  friend.  With  a  sedulous  sympathy  he  waits 
upon  her  wants,  and  with  yearning  anxiety  hails  every  symptom  of  returning 
health  or  sanity.  But  his  temperament  allows  him  not  to  forget,  meantime, 
that  he  is  a  man,  or  to  suppress  the  query,  whether  any  other  course  remains 
than  a  calm  submission  to  a  privation  which  unforeseen  circumstances  have 
brought  upon  him.  This  query  is  undoubtedly  proposed  in  a  thousand  instances 
in  the  depths  of  the  soul,  and  no  answer  is  returned  that  fully  satisfies  the  interro- 
gating spirit.  The  action  will  usually  be  according  to  the  dominant  character  of 
the  individual  concerned.  With  a  religious  man,  governed  by  a  tender  con- 
science, the  conclusion  will  scarcely  fail  to  be,  that  he  is  to  recognize  in  such  an 
extremity,  a  special  ordainment  of  the  Divine  providence,  intended  as  a  trial  of 
his  faith  and  patience,  and  that  the  only  alternative  is  a  meek  acquiescence  in  the 
wise  will  of  his  Heavenly  Father,  and  when  the  afiection  for  his  wife  is  deep  and 
mtense,  he  will  find,  I  presume,  comparatively  little  inconvenience  in  submitting 
to  his  lot.  It  is  at  any  rate,  on  all  accounts  the  soundest  and  safest  course,  and 
he  that  adopts  it  will  be  acting  on  the  true  principles  of  Swedenborg's  conjugial 
doctrines. 


228 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


But  suppose  the  case  of  one  of  a  different  character,  a  man  whose  breast  is  not 

profoundly  penetrated  by  religious  principles,  but  who  is  yet  of  kindly  affections, 
of  fair  external  deportment,  and  unexceptionable  in  his  civil  and  domestic  rela- 
tions— one  who,  in  ordinary  parlance,  would  be  termed  a  good  citizen,  a  good 
neighbor,  a  good  husband,  but  who  at  the  same  time  has  not  come  under  that 
peculiar  experimental  influence  of  religious  truth  which  we  usually  associate  with 
the  highest  type  of  moral  character.  He  is  not  devoid  of  conscience ;  he  feels 
and  acknowledges  the  obligation  of  the  marriage  tie  ;  he  has  no  disposition  to 
slight  the  claims  of  an  affectionate  wife  ;  but  he  is  still  conscious  of  the  pressure 
of  natural  promptings,  and  he  is  inwardly  sensible  to  what  he  deems  an  urgent 
"necessity"  on  this  score,  to  the  demands  of  which  he  feels  that  he  might  yield 
without  detriment  to  his  conjugial  love,  provided  it  could  be  done,  without  at  the 
same  time,  doing  violence  to  his  conscience.  It  is  doubtless  such  a  case  that 
Swedenborg's  suggestions  more  particularly  contemplate,  and  the  question  is  how 
far  he  is  warranted  in  even  hiniingat  a  course  made  permissible  only  in  very  pe- 
culiar circumstances,  and  in  a  state  of  mind  that  comes  short  of  the  full  require- 
ments of  a  spiritual  law.  I  am  well  aware  of  the  delicacy  and  the  difficulty  of 
the  subject,  and  my  grand  reliance,  in  attempting  to  rebut  the  force  of  your  ob- 
jections, is  in  presenting  distinctly  the  views  of  Swedenborg,  and  the  reasons 
which  he  urges  in  their  support.  Judgment  will  then  be  pronounced  upon  their 
intrinsic  merits. 

That  there  is  at  least  something  hard  in  the  compulsory  seclusion  supposed, 
especially  with  men  of  ardent  temperament,  will  doubtless  be  generally  admitted, 
even  when  it  is  still  looked  upon  as  an  allotment  that  admits  of  no  remedy,  as, 
for  instance,  in- the  case  of  one  whose  wife  has  become  the  hopeless  inmate  of 
a  lunatic  asylum.  That  it  is  moreover,  a  case  in  which  inquiry  often  arises  as 
to  the  possibility  of  a  dispensation  consistent  with  human  and  divine  laws,  is 
beyond  doubt.  Equally  indubitable  is  the  fact,  that  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
tribunals  have,  in  many  instances,  been  prone  to  lean  to  the  side  of  lenity  in  de- 
ciding upon  extreme  cases  of  this  kind.*  It  has  indeed  for  the  most  part  assumed 
tiie  form  of  a  question  respecting  the  right  of  polygamy  where  the  ends  of  a  prior 
marriage  were  frustrated,  and  in  this  form  it  came  prominently  before  the 
Reformers,  who  were  evidently  greatly  perplexed  by  it.  The  following  ex- 
tract from  Michelet's  Life  of  Luther,  will  serve  as  a  specimen  of  the  cases  of  con- 

*  The  subjoined  extract  does  not  present  a  case  entirely  parallel  to  that  we  are  now 
considering,  but  it  shows  lhat  concubinage  has  not  been  altogether  unknown  in  the  Chris- 
,  tian  church. 

"The  first  council  of  Toledo  (A.  D.  400)  has  this  canons — '  He  who  with  a  believ- 
ing tcife,  hath  a  concubine  is  excommunicated  ;  but  if  his  concubine  is  instead  of  a  wife, 
and  he  adheres  to  her  alone,  whether  she  be  called  a  wife  or  a  concubine,  he  is  not  to 
be  rejected  from  communion.'  'This  Canon,'  says  Fleury,  'shows  that  there  were 
concubines  approved  by  the  Church.  Accordin<^  to  the  Roman  laws,  every  woman 
could  not  be  the  legitimate  wife  of  every  man.  Both  were  to  be  Roman  citizens  and 
.  of  a  suitable  condition.  A  senator  could  not  marry  a  freed  woman  :  a  free  man  could 
•  not  marry  a  slave ;  and  the  cohabitation  of  slaves  was  not  called  by  the  name  of  mar- 
riage. But  a  woman  who  could  not  be  taken  as  a  wife,  might  be  taken  as  a  concu- 
bine ;  and  the  laws  allowed  it,  provided  the  man  had  only  one  concubine,  and  was  not 
a  married  man.  The  children  of  such  marriajjes  were  neither  legitimate  nor  bastards, 
but  natural  children  acknowledged  by  the  father,  and  capable  of  receiving  legacies. 
The  Church  meddled  not  with  these  distinctions  of  the  civil  laws ;  but  regarding  only 
the  law  of  nature,  approved  of  every  conjunction  of  one  woman,  if  it  was  one  woman 
only,  and  perpetual ;  and  the  more  so,  because  the  Holy  Scriptures  employ  the  name  of 
^wife  or  of  concubine  indifferently.' " — (Jorlin's  Rem.  on  Ecclcs.  Hist.  Vol.  1.  p.  422.) 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

$cience  that  were  sometimes  brought  before  them.  The  letter  of  the  Landgrave  of 
Hesse'shows  a  curious  and  even  amusing  conflict  between  the  promptings  of 
the  lower  and  the  dictates  of  the  higher  nature. 

"  We  noticed  at  an  early  period  of  this  narrative,  the  melancholy  state  of  de- 
pendence in  which  the  Reformation  was  placed  on  the  princes  that  espoused  the 
cause.  Luther  had  time  to  foresee  the  results.  These  princes  were  men,  with 
men's  caprices  and  passions.  And  hence  concessions,  which,  without  being 
contrary  to  the  principles  of  the  reformation,  seemed  to  redound  little  to  the 
honor  of  the  reformers.  The  most  warlike  of  these  princes,  the  hotheaded 
landgrave  of  Hesse,  submitted  to  Luther  and  the  Protestant  ministers,  that 
his  health  would  not  allow  of  his  confining  himself  to  one  wife.  His  in 
structions  to  Bucer  for  the  negotiation  of  this  matter  with  the  theologians  of 
Wittemberg,  are  a  curious  mixture  of  sensuality,  of  religious  fears,  and  of 
daring  simplicity.  'Ever  since  I  have  been  married,' he  writes,  '  I  have  lived 
in  adultery  and  fornication;  and  as  I  won't  give  up  this  way  of  living,  I  cannot 
present  myself  at  the  holy  table ;  for  St.  Paul  has  said,  that  the  adulterer  shall 
not  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven.'  He  proceeds  to  state  the  reasons  which 
drive  him  into  this  course  :  '  My  wife  is  neither  good  looking  nor  good-tem- 
pered; she  is  not  sweet;  she  drinks,  and  my  chamberlains  can  tell  what  she 
then  does,  &c.  I  am  of  a  warm  complexion,  as  the  physicians  can  prove  ; 
and  as  I  often  attend  the  imperial  diets,  where  the  body  is  pampered  with  high 
living,  how  am  I  to  manage  there  without  a  wife,  especially  as  I  can't  be  always 
taking  a  seraglio  about  with  me  ?  .  .  .  How  can  I  punish  fornication  and  other 
crimes,  when  all  may  turn  round  and  say,  "  Master,  begin  with  yourself?"  .  .  . 
Were  I  to  take  up  arms  for  the  Gospel's  sake,  I  could  only  do  so  with  a  troubled 
conscience,  for  I  should  say  to  myself,  "  If  you  die  in  this  war,  you  go  to  the 
devil."  ...  I  have  read  both  the  Old  and  New  Testament  carefully,  and  find 
no  other  help  indicated  than  to  take  a  second  wife ;  and  I  ask  before  God 
why  cannot  I  do  what  Abraham,  Jacob,  David,  Lamech,  and  Solomon  have 
done  ?'  The  question  of  polygamy  had  been  agitated  from  the  very  beginning 
of  Protestantism,  which  professed  to  restore  the  world  to  scriptural  life ;  and, 
whatever  his  repugnance,  Luther  durst  not  condemn  the  Old  Testament. 
Besides,  the  Protestants  held  marriage,  to  be  res  politica,  and  subject  to  the  reg- 
ulations of  the  civil  power.  Luther,  too,  had  already  held,  theoretically,  and 
without  advising  it  to  be  put  in  practice,  the  very  doctrine  advanced  by  the  land- 
grave. He  had  written  years  before confess,  I  cannot  say  that  polygamy 
is  repugnant  to  Holy  Scripture,  yet  would  not  have  the  practice  introduced 
amongst  Christians,  who  ought  to  abstain  even  from  what  is  lawful,  in  order  to 
avoid  scandal,  and  in  order  to  maintain  that  honestas  (decorum)  which  St.  Paul 
requireth  under  all  circumstances.' — (Jan.  13th,  1524.)  '  Polygamy  is  not  allowa- 
ble amongst  Christians,  except  in  cases  of  absolute  necessity,  as  when  a  man  is  forced  to 
separate  from  a  leprous  wife,'  &c. 

"  Luther  was  greatly  embarrassed  by  the  landgrave's  message.  All  the  theo- 
logians of  Wittemberg  assembled  to  draw  up  an  answer,  and  the  result  was  a 
compromise.  He  was  allowed  a  double  marriage,  on  condition  that  his  second 
wife  should  not  be  publicly  recognized.  '  Your  highness  "must  be  aware  of  the 
difference  between  establishing  a  universal  and  granting  an  exceptional  law.  .  .  . 
We  cannot  publicly  sanction  a  plurality  of  wives.  .  .  .  We  pray  your  highness 
to  consider  the  dangers  in  which  a  man  would  stand  who  should  introduce  a 


230  REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 

law  that  would  disunite  families,  and  plunge  them  into  endless  law-suits.  .  .  . 
Your  highness'  constitution  is  weak,  you  sleep  badly,  and  your  health  requires 
every  care.  .  .  .  The  great  Scanderbeg  often  exhorted  hie  soldiers  to  chastity, 
saying  that  nothing  was  so  injurious  in  their  calling  as  incontinence.  .  .  .  We 
pray  your  highness  seriously  to  take  into  consideration  the  scandals,  cares,  labors, 
griefs,  and  infirmities  herein  brought  under  your  notice.  .  .  .  If  nevertheless  your 
highness  is  fully  resolved  to  take  a  second  wife,  we  are  of  opinion  that  the  marriage  should 
be  secret.  .  .  .  Given  at  Wittemberg,  after  the  festival  of  St.  Nicholas,  1539. — 
Martin  Luther,  Philip  Melancthon,  Martin  Bucer,  Antony  Corvin,  Adam,  John 
Lening,  Justin  WiNTFERT,  Dionisius  Melanther.'" — p.  169-171. 

Here  is  certainly  a  concession  made  to  virtual  concubinage  by  these  grave  and 
reverend  men,  and  that  too  on  the  ground  of  the  urgent  solicitations  of  the  flesh 
to  which,  in  natural  men,  Swedenborg  intimates  that  some  clemency  may  be 
shown.  And  that  Luther  himself  had  a  tolerably  high  idea  of  the  strength  of 
these  propensities  is  very  clear  from  the  extracts  which  follow.  "  Luther  being 
asked  whether  a  Christian  preacher,  who  is  bound  to  suffer  imprisonment  and 
persecution  for  the  word's  sake,  ought  not  much  more  to  do  without  marriage  ? 
replied ;  '  It  is  easier  to  endure  imprisonment  than  desire,  as  I  know  in  my  own 
person.  The  more  I  strove  to  macerate  and  subdue  the  flesh,  the  more  I  lusted.' " 
To  a  friend  he  writes ;  "  If  you  lust,  marry  .  .  .  No  one  will  ever  have  to  repent 
rising  early  and  marrying  young  .  .  ..  It  is  no  more  possible  to  do  without  a 
wife  than  without  eating  and  drinking.  Conceived,  nourished,  and  born  within 
the  body  of  woman,  our  flesh  is  mainly  hers,  and  it  is  impossible  for  us  ever  to 
separate  wholly  from  her." — {Mitchelet,  p.  175,  176). 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  sentence  of  the  venerable  conclave  at  Wittem- 
berg the  mattter  is  put  very  much  upon  the  basis  mentioned  by  Swedenborg. 
He  says  it  is  better  that  one  should  be  wholly  continent,  but  if,  from  the  ardor  of 
his  temperament,  he  cannot  contain,  then  let  the  intercourse  be  restricted  to  one 
woman  rather  than  let  passion  run  riot  with  many.  So  in  the  Wittemberg  decree  ; 
although  a  rigid  self  denial  would  be  vastly  preferable,  yet "  nevertheless  j/your 
highness  is  fully  resolved  to  take  a  second  wife,  we  are  of  the  opinion  that  the 
marriage  should  be  secret."  The  "  Antichristicide"  and  his  associates  herein 
display  a  complaisance  to  the  prince  and  an  estimate  of  the  pressure  of  "  the 
present  necessity"  which,  I  doubt,  would  hardly  meet  a  favoring  response  from 
their  most  fervent  admirers  of  later  times. 

The  dubious  Landgrave  was  at  a  loss,  it  seems,  to  know  why  the  license  ac- 
corded to  Abraham,  Jacob,  David,  Lamech,  and  Solomon,  could  not  be  granted 
to  him  also.  Had  the  "  Conjugial  Love"  then  been  written,  and  had  Luther  been 
somewhat  more  of  a  Swedenborgian  than  Swedenborg  was  a  Lutheran,  he 
would  have  been  very  apt  to  quote  for  the  querists'  edification  the  ensuing  para- 
graph. 

•'  That  the  Tsraelitish  nation  was  permitted  to  marry  a  plurality  of  wives, 

because  tne  christian  ciiuilch  was  not  with  that  nation,  and  consequenti.y 
LOVE  TRULY  CONJUGIAL  COULD  NOT  EXIST  THERE.  Theic  arc  somc  at  tliis  day  whose 
thoughts  are  fluctuatiug  respecting  the  institution  relative  to  monogamical  mar- 
riages, or  those  of  mie  man  with  one  wife,  and  who  are  distracted  by  opposite 
reasouings  on  the  subject;  being  led  to  suppose  that  because  polygamical  mar- 
riages were  openly  permitted  in  the  case  of  the  Israelitish  nation,  and  its  kings, 
and  in  the  case  of  David  and  Solomon,  tliey  are  also  in  themselves  permissible 
to  Christians ;  but  such  persons  have  no  distinct  knowledge  concerning  the  Israel- 
itish nation  and  the  Christian,  nor  concerning  the  externals  and  internals  of  tlie 


S  I . 


RKPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


231 


church,  not  concerning  the  change  of  the  church  from  external  to  internal  by 
the  Lord  ;  consequently  they  know  nothing  from  interior  judgment  concerning 
marriages.  In  general  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  a  man  Is  born  natural  in  order 
that  he  maybe  made  spiritual ;  and  that  so  long  as  he  remains  natnral,  he  is  in 
llie  ni^ht,  and  as  it  were  in  sleep  ooncerning  things  spiritual ;  and  that  in  this 
■case  he  does  not  even  know  the  difference  between  the  external  natural  man 
.and  the  internal  spiritual.  That  the  Christian  church  was  not  with  the  Israel- 
(litish  nation,  is  known  from  the  VVord ;  for  they  expected  the  Messiah,  as  they 
i^till  cxi^ect  liira,  who  was  to  exalt  them  above  all  nations  and  people  in  the 
s world  ;  wherefore  if  they  had  been  told,  and  were  still  to  be  told,  that  the  Mes- 
(siah's  kingdom  is  over  the  heavens,  and  thence  overall  nations,  they  would  have 
accounted  it  an  idle  tale;  hence  it  was,  that  they  not  only  did  not  acknowledge 
THi'Tst  or  the  Messiah,  our  Tord,  when  he  came  into  the  world,  but  also  barbar-, 
onsly  took  him  away  out  of  the  world.  From  these  considerations  it  is  evident,; 
ihat  the  Christian  chiirch  was  riof  w'lth  that  nation,  as  neither  is  it  at  this  day 
and  those  with  whom  the  Christian  church  is  not,  are  natural  men  both  exter- 
nally and  internally  ;  and  to  such  polygamy  is  net  hurtful,  since  it  is  inscribed  on 
the  natural  man  ;  for,  in  regard  to  love  in  marriages,  the  natural  man  perceives, 
nothing  but  what  appertains  to  lust.  This  is  meant  by  these  words  of  the  Lord 
'  That  Moses  because  of  the  hardness  of  their  heart  suffered  them  to  put  away  their 
wives ;  but  that  from  the  beginning  it  was  not  so'  (Matt.  xix.  8)." — C  L.  340. 

If  this  be  sound  reasoning,  there  was  an  actual  concession  made,  under  the 
ancient  economy,  to  the  infirmities  of  human  nature,  and  yet  it  was  one  which 
had  special  relation  to  the  state  of  mind  of  the  parties  concerned,  and  one  which 
could  only  receive  toleration  on  the  ground  of  that  state.  It  would  seem  that 
Luther  was  at  a  loss  to  perceive  why  the  principle  thus  recognized  under  the 
divine  administration  should  not  operate  where  the  original  grounds  and  reasons 
for  it  were  equally  cogent.  He  would  probably  have  been  strongly  predisposed 
to  side  with  the  reasoning  of  Milton ;  "  If  the  law  will  afford  no  reason  why  the 
Jew  should  be  more  gently  dealt  with  than  the  Christian,  then  surely  the  gospel 
can  afford  as  little  why  the  Christian  should  be  less  gently  dealt  with  than  the 
Jew,  The  gospel  indeed  exhorts  to  highest  perfection,  but  bears  with  weakest 
infirmity  more  than  the  law.  Hence  those  indulgences, '  all  cannot  receive  this 
saying;  every  man  hath  his  proper  gift,' with  express  charges  not  to  '  lay  on 
yokes  which  our  fathers  could  not  bear.'"  "  The  nature  of  man  still  is  as  weak, 
and  yet  as  hard ;  and  that  weakness  and  hardness  as  unfit  and  as  unteachable 
to  be  hardly  used  as  ever."  ..."  If  those  indulgences  were  safe  and  sinless,  out 
of  tenderness  and  compassion,  as  indeed  they  were,  and  yet  shall  be  abrogated 
by  the  gospel ;  then  the  law,  whose  end  is  by  rigor  to  magnify  grace,  shall  itself 
give  grace,  and  pluck  a  fair  plume  from  the  gospel."  ..."  If  the  gospel  require 
perfecter  obedience  than  the  law  as  a  duty,  it  exalts  the  law  and  abases  itself, 
which  is  dishonorable  to  the  work  of  our  redemption.  Seeing  therefore  that  all 
the  causes  of  any  allowance  that  the  Jews  might  have,  remain  as  well  to  the 
Christians ;  this  is  a  certain  rule,  that  so  long  as  the  causes  remain,  the  allow- 
ance ought." 

That  there  actually  was  something  in  the  Jewish  code  analogous  to  the  ex-^^ 
pedients  pointed  out  by  S  wedenborg,  is  beyond  all  question.  Thus  from  Ex.  xxi." 
_9,^it  appears  that  parents,  in  order  to  guard  their  adult  male  offspring  from 
debauchery  before  marriage,  used  to  give  them  one  of  their  femiale  slaves  as  a 
concubine. X This  was  undoubtedly  on  the  principle  of  consulting  just  such  an' 
apprehended  necessity  as  Swedenborg  speaks  of  in  what  he  says  of  pellicacy,  and 
this  provision  stands  indelible  in  the  book  of  God,  and  as  an  integral  part  of 
that  system  of  enactments  which  he  gave  to  the  chosen  people.    I  do  not  refer 


232 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


to  it  with  the  design  to  imply  that  Christian  men  are  now  at  hberty  to  avail  them- 
selves of  such  a  provision,  but  simply  to  show  that  the  grand  principle  which 
lies  at  the  foundation  of  these  scortatory  doctrines  has  been  distinctly  recognized 
in  the  Divine  economy  as  set  forth  in  the  inspired  writings,  and  consequently 
that  there  is  some  sense  in  which  such  permissions  are  not  irreconcilably  at  war 
with  the  will  of  Jehovah.  Tfthey  were  intrinsically  in  absolute  antagonism 
'  with  the  moral  precepts  of  the  Decalogue  they  could  no  more  have  been  allow- 
,  ed  under  the  law  than  under  the  gospel,  nor  will  it  be  easy  to  say  why  they 
should  be  any  less  allowed  under  the  gospel  than  under  the  law.  The  matter 
'then  resolves  itself  into  the  question,  whether  the  strength  of  the  rational  con- 
viction on  this  head  may  not  be  such  as  to  make  it  at  least  very  difficult  to  con- 
ceive that  our  Lord,  who  himself  gave  the  Jews  their  laws,  really  intended  to  do 
away  all  such  permissions,  not  in  regard  to  his  own  true  disciples,  but  in  re- 
gard to  those  who  were  not  at  present  sufficiently  in  the  light  of  truth  or  the 
love  of  good  to  heed  the  demands  of  a  higher  precept.  If,  notwithstanding,  it  be 
maintained  that  the  strictness  of  the  letter  on  this  point  is  to  be  unabatingly  ad- 
hered to,  how  shall  we  suffer  ourselves  to  relax  the  rigor  of  the  requisitions 
which  occur  in  the  same  connection,  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.'  "If  thy 
right  eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out.  If  thy  right  hand  offend  thee,  cut  it  off." 
Who  understands  this  literally .'  "I  say  unto  you,  swear  not  at  all.  Let  your 
communication  be  yea,  yea ;  nay,  nay."  Is  this  literally  acted  upon  by  the  mass 
of  Christians  ?  Are  not  oatlis  every  where  in  use  ?  "  Whosoever  shall  smite  thee 
upon  thy  right  cheek  turn  to  him  the  other  also.  And  if  any  man  will  sue  thee 
at  the  law,  and  take  away  thy  coat,  let  him  have  thy  cloak  also."  Is  this  precept 
ever  looked  upon  as  literally  binding?  "Lay  not  up  for  j^ourselves  treasures 
upon  earth."  What  kind  of  commentary  do  we  read  upon  this  text  in  the  daily 
lives  of  professed  Christians  It  will  doubtless  be  said  that  in  all  these  cases  the 
mind  readily  perceives  the  general  spirit  of  the  lesson  taught,  and  acknowledges  no 
violende  done  to  the  Saviour's  scope,  though  the  express  terms  of  the  letter  are  not 
punctiliously  adhered  to.  A  principle  is  elicited,  and  even  the  very  principle 
which  was  virtually  inculcated  in  the  Mosaic  law,  but  which  had  been  per- 
verted and  abused  by  the  national  usage.  Why  then  shall  we  any  more  in- 
sist that  the  principle  which  dictated  certain  permissions  in  certain  circumstan- 
ces under  the  former  economy  shall  not  be  allowed  to  operate,  in  the  same  cir- 
cumstances, under  the  gospel  dispensation  .'  Are  "  the  letters  to  be  turned  into 
palisadoes  to  stake  out  all  requisite  sense  from  entering  into  their  due  enlarge- 
ment ?" 

As  I  have  quoted  Martin  Luther,  I  will  here  adduce  the  words  of  Martin 
Bucer,  one  of  his  illustrious  compeers  in  the  work  of  the  Reformation.  Ke  is 
indeed  urging  a  plea  for  divorce,  which  I  do  not  endorse,  but  the  grounds  of  his 
plea  are  equally  applicable  to  the  separation  o(  which  I  am  treating;  and  the 
same  remark  I  would  make  in  reference  to  all  my  citations  from  Milton.  His 
reasonings  I  consider  valid,  but  I  do  not  agree  with  his  conclusions  respecting  the 
proper  remedy.  "  It  cannot  be  doubted  by  them  to  whom  it  is  given  to  know 
God  and  his  judgments  out  of  his  own  words,  but  that,  what  means  of  peace 
and  safety  God  ever  granted  and  ordained  to  his  elected  people,  the  same  he 
grants  and  ordains  to  men  of  all  a^es,  who  have  equally  need  of  the  same  reme- 
dies. And  who,  that  is  but  a  knowing  man,  dares  say  there  are  not  husbands 
and  wives  now  to  be  found  in  such  hardness  of  heart,  that  they  will  not  per 


1 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


233 


form  either  conjugal  affection,  or  any  requisite  duty  thereof,  though  it  be  most 
deserved  at  their  hands  .'  Neither  can  any  one  defer  to  confess,  but  that  God, 
whose  property  it  is  to  judge  the  causes  of  them  that  suffer  injury,  has  provided 
for  innocent  and  honest  persons  wedded,  how  they  miglit  free  themselves  by 
lawful  means  of  divorce,  from  the  bondage  and  iniquity  of  those  who  are 
falsely  termed  their  husbands  op  their  wives.  This  is  clear  out  of  Deut.  xxiv.  1 ; 
Mai.  ii;  Mat.  xix.  1 ;  1  Cor.  vii;  and  out  of  those  principles  which  the  Scripture 
every  where  teaches,  that  God  changes  not  his  mind,  dissents  not  from  himself, 
is  no  accepter  of  persons;  but  allows  the  same  remedies  to  all  men  oppressed 
with  the  same  necessities  and  infirmities ;  yea,  requires  that  we  should  use 
them.  This  he  will  easily  perceive,  who  considers  these  things  in  the  spirit  of 
the  Lord." — Judg.  of  Divorce,  ch.  xxxvi.  The  sentiment  here  advanced  may  not 
perhaps  find  general  assent  in  the  present  state  of  religious  opinion,  but  it  is 
worth  inquiry  whether  those  who  reject  it  may  not  mistake  a  "  letter-bound  ser- 
vility to  canon  doctors,"  for  the  voice  of  God  speaking  through  the  living 
oracles  of  the  word-eidightened  spirit.  The  permissions  conceded  in  the  Mosaic 
law,  or  rather  the  causes  on  which  they  are  founded,  appear  to  be  occasionally 
recognized  in  the  subsequent  Scriptures,  as  where  Solomon  says,  for  instance. 
It  is  better  to  dwell  in  a  corner  of  the  house-top  than  with  a  brawling  woman 
in  a  wide  house."  And  again,  "  It  is  better  to  dwell  in  the  wilderness,  than  with 
a  contentious  and  angry  woman."  This  surely  means  something,  and  I  see  not 
how  it  can  amount  to  anything  less  than  a  warrant  for  domiciliary  separation, 
which  goes  at  least  so  far  towards  sustaining  what  Swedenborg  has  said  on  that 
subject.  As  to  any  ulterior  resort  in  such  a  case,  this  must  be  judged  of  by  the 
sufRciency  of  the  grounds  alleged  for  it.  By  a  Jew  it  would  doubtless  be  under- 
stood as  authorizing  recourse  to  divorce  on  the  basis  of  Deut.  xxiv.  1.  It  is  cited 
here  simply  as  an  illustration  of  the  principle  of  concession,  of  which  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  why  it  should  not  always  operate  where  the  original  causes  operate. 
So  also,  Mai.  2.  16,  "  For  the  Lord,  the  God  of  Israel,  saith  that  he  hateth  putting 
away."  This  is  undoubtedly  an  erroneous  rendering  instead  of  the  genuine, 
"  He  that  hateth,  let  him  put  away,"  as  the  great  current  of  versions  and  com-^ 
mentators  have  it.  Venema  has  elaborately  shown  that  the  words  come  in  as  a 
counterplea  of  the  Jews,  to  whom  it  is  said  in  the  preceding  verse,  "  Take  heed 
to  your  spirit,  and  let  none  of  you  deal  treacherously  against  the  Avife  of  his 
youth."  "But,"  reply  the  reprimanded  people,  " the  Lord,  the  God  of  Israel, 
saith.  He  that  hateth  his  wife  let  him  put  her  away."  "  Nay,"  rejoins  the  Prophet, 
"  although  that  is  true,  yet  this  is  an  abuse  of  the  divine  clemency  ;  ye  have  made 
it  a  plea  for  the  grossest  wrong  which  ye  would  fain  cloak  under  the  alleged 
license ;  but  such  a  plea  will  no  more  conceal  it  than  will  a  garment  an  act  of 
violence.  Therefore  take  heed  to  your  spirit,  that  ye  deal  not  treacherously." 
The  principle  is  allowed,  but  its  perversion  condemned.  Again,  we  find  some- 
thing analogous  in  the  words  of  Paul,  1  Cor.  vii.  15,  "  But  if  the  unbelieving  de- 
part, let  him  depart.  A  brother  or  a  sister  is  not  under  bondage  in  such  cases." 
The  supposed  cause  of  separation  here  is  a  difference  of  religion,  but  the  prin- 
ciple involved  is  substantially  the  same.  It  is  a  relaxation  of  the  iron  rigor  of 
the  law  of  marriage  in  accommodation  to  the  force  of  circumstances. 
^  (4.)  Having  thus  obtained  a  tolerably  correct  view  of  the  nature  of  the  relation 
which  Swedenborg  denominates  concubinage — having  seen  that  the  term  indi- 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


cates  a  species  of  connection  which  has  not,  in  Scripture,  the  opprobrious  char- 
acter that  in  our  ordinary  parlance  attaches  to  it — and  having  learnt  that  it  does 
not  imply  that  heartless  abandonment  which  you  have  ascribed  to  it-^it  remains 
to  advert  to  the  caiises  which  he,  with  so  much  caution  and  discrimination,  pro- 
nounces "legitimate,  just,  and  really  sufficient."  These  he  says  are  various 
"  vitiated  states  of  mind  and  body,"  which  he  enumerates,  and  of  which  a  man 
is  constituted  himself  the  sole  judge.  I  have  little  to  say  in  regard  to  these 
causes  in  addition  to  what  I  find  said  by  the  author  himself.  In  regard  to  most 
of  them  they  do,  I  confess,  strike  me  as  answering  to  the  character  described ; 
as  going  to  frustrate  some  of  the  important  ends  of  marriage  ;  and  therefore  as 
entitled  to  weigh  in  the  case  of  a  resort  to  the  alternative  suggested,  hi  respect 
to  some  others,  such  as  "  loss  of  memory," — "  extreme  simplicity," — "  unbridled 
eagerness  to  talk  upon  insignificant  and  trifling  things,  and  to  publish  the  secrets 
of  the  house" — "detrimental  effluvia  exhaled  from  the  body  or  the  lungs,"  &c.,  I 
am  somewhat  less  clear  in  my  mind  from  not  knowing  precisely  the  extent  of 
the  author's  mearnng,  or  the  degree  in  which  he  supposes  the  different  ailments 
should  exist  in  order  to  legitimate  them  as  grounds  of  separation  from  the  bed, 
which,  by  the  way,  is  all  that  he  speaks  of  in  the  former  part  of  the  work  where 
he  first  enumerates  them.  Still,  if  I  were  better  instructed  as  to  the  real  meaning 
of  Swedenborg,  I  presume  I  should  have  little  difficulty  in  conceding  the  valid- 
ity of  all  the  causes  cited  ;  but  as  it  is,  I  have  no  difficulty  in  assenting  to  the 
position,  that  the  man  himself,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  the  woman,  is  to  be  the 
exclusive  judge  of  the  supposed  necessity  of  the  case.  A  married  partner  may 
sometimes  be  reduced  to  a  state  of  living  martyrdom  by  a  complication  of  griev- 
ances and  vexations  which  he  could  never  think  of  divulging  to  the  world,  or  it 
may  be  to  the  most  intimate  friend.  He  can  only  say  with  the  old  Roman, 
Paulus  Emilius,  when  asked  why  he  would  put  away  his  wife  for  no  visible 
reason ;  "  This  shoe,"  said  he,  holding  it  out  on  his  foot,  "  is  a  neat  shoe,  a  new 
shoe,  and  yet  none  of  you  can  tell  where  it  pinches  me."  The  secrets  of  the 
parlor  or  the  bed-chamber  are  not  to  be  proclaimed  upon  the  house-tops.  TJia 
'design  of  marriage  is  to  promote  the  mental  and  corporeal  happiness  of  the 
■'wedded  pair.  If  this  end  is,  in  either  department,  defeated  by  the  hopeless  in- 
firmities or  the  ingrained  and  incurable  perversities  of  a  partner,  and  the  reli- 
gious principle  is  not  sufficiently  strong  to  dictate  an  uncomplaining  submission 
to  the  cross,  Swedenborg  says  of  such  an  one — not  to  him — that  recourse  ad  exi- 
gentiam  to  concubinage  is  not  illicit.  It  is  made  licit  by  his  present  state  of  mind, 
on  the  same  principle  on  which  he  says  that  polygamy  is  not  a  sin,  to  those  who 
practise  it  under  the  sanction  of  the  religion  in  which  they  have  been  reared,  for 
"  to  him  that  thinketh  anything  to  be  sin,  to  him  it  is  sin."  The  permission  is 
clearly  liable  to  abuse,  and  a  man  may  capriciously  endow  himself  with  a  license 
at  which  striot  justice  would  revolt.  On  this  head  he  is  to  be  studiously  on  his 
guard.  Thus  as  to  bodily  diseases,  he  may  take  undue  advantage  of  a  mere 
transient  indisposition,  whereas  Swedenborg  is  very  express  in  saying,  that  "  by 
vitiated  states  of  body  are  not  meant  accidental  diseases  which  befal  one  or  other 
conjugial  partner  within  the  time  of  their  marriage,  and  pass  away  ;  but  by  viti- 
ated states  of  body,  are  meant  inherent  diseases,  which  do  not  pass  away." 
And  so,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  of  all  other  causes  assigned,  a  man  is  to  "  judge 
righteous  judgment,"  and  the  more  so,  if  possible,  inasmuch  as  he  acknow- 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


299 


ledges  no  other  tribunal  than  that  of  his  own  conscience  before  God.  With  a 
man  of  honorable  and  generous  sentiments  it  may  be  presumed  that  he  will 
shrink  from  anything  really  injurious  to  the  feelings  of  a  wife  whom  he  tenderly 
esteems,  and  it  is  very  conceivable  that  on  her  part  she  may,  in  peculiar  circum- 
stances, so  far  appreciate  the  force  of  a  partner's  plea,  as  voluntarily  to  accord 
to  the  promptings  of  the  man  a  privilege  which  she  deems  would  not  necessa- 
rily withdraw  from  her  the  affections  of  a  husband.  We  can  scarcely  suppose 
that  Sarah  in  giving  her  maid  Hagar  to  Abraham,  or  Rachel  in  giving  Bilhah  to 
Jacob,  or  Leah  in  giving  him  Zilpah,  regarded  themselves  as  signing  away  their 
title  to  their  husband's  love. 

If  it  be  said  that  this  is  a  vein  of  remark  utterly  inapropos  to  anything 
that  can  be  conceived  of  the  workings  of  a  Christian  mind,  I  have  only  to 
say  in  reply,  that  this  entire  discussion  has  reference  to  the  opposite  of  true  con- 
jugial  love,  and  of  course  to  the  exercises  and  judgments  of  truly  regenerate 
men.  It  is  not  supposed  that  they  apply  to  Christians  acting  as  Christians. 
All  scortatory  demonstrations  are  a  form  of  evil,  and  falling  without  the  sphere 
of  genuine  good,  and  are  viewed  by  Svvedenborg  in  this  light  throughout 
every  page  of  his  treatise.  Still  he  does  not  consider  himself  precluded  from 
speaking  of  them,  from  characterizing  them,  or  dravring  important  distinc- 
tions concerning  them.  If  a  missionary  of  the  New  Church  were  to  go  to  the 
Mahometans  to  preach  to  them  its  doctrines,  be  would  undoubtedly  assure  them 
that  their  polygamy  was  directly  at  war  with  the  essential  genius  of  the  conju- 
gal relation,  and  consequently  with  the  laws  of  their  spiritual  being,  and  that 
without  renouncing  it  they  could  never  enter  the  Christian's  heaven ;  and  yet  he 
would  not  feel  disposed  to  cancel  a  page  of  the  work  on  "  Conjugial  Love,"  nor 
to  conceal  from  any  one  who  could  intelligently  receive  them  the  principles  it 
contains  respecting  the  bearing  which  the  dominant  mental  and  moral  state  of 
every  individual  has  upon  the  character  of  his  actions  and  the  determination  of  , 
his  destiny.  He  would  doubtless  feel  bound  to  exercise  a  wise  discretion,  but  if 
duly  called  upon,  and  especially  if  unjustly  accused  in  regard  to  the  scope  of 
his  teachings,  why  should  he  shrink  from  the  enunciation  of  positive  truth And 
under  parallel  circumstances  why  should  not  the  course  which  would  be  proper 
at  Constantinople,  be  proper  also  at  London  or  New  York Let  it  be  clearly 
shown  that  a  Christian  moralist  has  in  no  case  a  right  to  discriminate  between 
the  different  degrees  of  evil — to  treat  of  the  laws  of  permission  as  well  as 
the  laws  of  command — to  point  out,  in  reference  to  a  certain  class  of  men, 
the  mode  by  which  a  great  evil  may  be  coerced,  limited,  and  reduced  to  a 
less,  while  there  is  no  rational  prospect  of  its  being  at  present  extirpated — ■ 
and  we  shall  then  begin  to  question  in  earnest  the  propriety  of  upholding  Swe- 
denborg's  doctrine  respecting  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes.  But  till  this  is  done,, 
we  see  not  why  his  leading  positions,  which  are  in  full  accord  with  the 
fundamental  doctrines  he  has  taught,  should  not  be  regarded  as  sound.  They 
can  only,  however,  be  justly  appreciated  by  being  viewed  in  connection  with 
what  he  has  said  of  the  grounds  on  which  judgment  on  human  actions  is  pro- 
nounced in  the  other  life.    To  this  point  I  shall  soon  advert. 

(5.)  As  I  have  before  remarked,  the  true  character  of  the  conjugial  principle  is  ' 
the  true  measure  of  judgment  in  respect  to  all  that  he  has  said  on  the  subject 
under  discussion.   This  principle  he  treats  as  a  strictly  religious  element  in  our 


236 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


being,  receiving  its  character  from  its  origin  in  the  union  of  love  and  wisdom, 
or  truth  and  good,  by  which  alone  the  soul  is  conjoined  or  married  to  the  Lord, 
on  the  ground  of  which  He  is  pleased  to  style  himself  the  Husband  and  the 
Church  his  Bride  or  Wife,  and  to  which  Paul  evidently  alludes  as  a  "  great  mys- 
tery" shadowed  forth  in  the  marriage  relation.*  I  am  well  aware  that  such  lan- 
guage as  Swedenborg  employs  in  the  following  paragraphs  will  be  deemed 
extravagant  by  those  who  have  never  been  in  the  habit  of  referring  natural  loves 
to  spiritual  principles,  but  let  the  assertions  be  tried  by  the  reasons  adduced  in 
their  support,  and  then  see  if  their  truth  can  be  gainsayed. 

"Inasmuch  as  the  conjugial  principle  of  one  man  vmn  one  wife  is  the 

STORE-HOUSE    OF    HUMAN    LIFE,   AND    THE    RESERVOIR    OF    THE    CHRISTIAN  RELIGION. 

These  two  things  are  what  have  been  demonstrated  universally  and  singularly 
in  the  whole  preceding  part  concerning  conjugial  love  and  the  delights  of  its 
wisdom.  The  reason  why  it  is  the  storehouse  of  human  life  is,  because  a  man's 
life  is  of  a  quality  according  to  the  quality  of  that  love  with  him;  since  that  love 
constitutes  the  inmost  principle  of  his  life  :  for  it  is  the  life  of  wisdom  cohabitmg 
with  its  love,  and  of  love  cohabiting  with  its  wisdom,  and  hence  it  is  the  life  of 
the  delights  of  each ;  in  a  word,  a  man  is  a  soul  living  by  means  of  that  love  : 
hence  it  is,  that  the  conjugial  tie  of  one  man  with  one  wife  is  called  the  store- 
house of  human  life.  This  is  confirmed  from  the  following  articles  above  ad- 
duced. That  with  one  wife  there  exist  truly  conjugial  friendship,  confidence  and 
potency,  because  a  union  of  minds,  n.  333,  334.  That  in  a  union  with  one  wife, 
and  from  it,  exist  celestial  blessednesses,  spiritual  satisfactions,  and  thence  nat- 
ural delights,  which  from  the  beginning  have  been  provided  for  those  who  are  in 
love  truly  conjugial,  n.  335.  That  it  is  the  foundation  love  of  all  celestial,  spirit- 
ual, and  derivative  natural  loves,  and  that  into  that  love  are  collated  all  joys  and 
delights  from  first  to  last,  n.  65  to  69  ;  and  that  viewed  in  its  origin,  it  is  the  sport 
of  wisdom  and  love,  has  been  fully  demonstrated  in  the  Delights  of  Wisdom  con- 
cerning Conjugial  Love,  which  constitute  the  first  part  of  this  work. 

"  The  reason  why  that  love  is  the  reservoir  of  the  Christian  religion  is,  because 
this  religion  makes  one  with  that  love,  and  cohabits  with  it ;  for  it  was  shown. 


*  "  I  spake  with  them  concerning  marriages — that  marriages  or  conjugial  love  was 
the  foundation  of  all  loves,  which  is  confirmed  from  the  consideration^  that  thence  is 
the  propagation  of  human  society,  and  consequently  of  celfestial  societies,  wherefore  it 
has  imparted  to  it  a  corporeal  pleasure  surpassing  all  others,  for  delights  are  adjoined 
according  to  the  necessities  of  ends,  and  conjugial  love  is  pleasanter  and  happier  than 
any  other  love,  so  that  a  right  conjugial  union  is  heaven  upon  earth,  thus  is  celestial 
love,  from  which  flow  all  other  loves,  being  originally  derived  from  the  love  or  merely  of 
the  Lord  towards  heaven,  the  church,  and  the  universal  human  race,  and  descending  from 
Him  alone  ;  from  which  it  ap))ears  how  sacred  marriages  ought  to  be  held." — S.  D.  377S. 

"After  this  I  conversed  with  the  angels,  informing  them,  that  somewhat  further  is  re- 
vealed in  the  world  by  the  Lord.  They  asked,  '  What  further  V  I  said,  '  Concerning 
love  truly  conjugial,  and  concerning  its  heavenly  delights.'  The  angels  said, '  Who  does 
not  know,  that  the  delights  of  conjugial  love  exceed  the  delights  of  all  loves  1  and  who 
cannot  see,  that  into  seme  love  are  collated  all  the  blessednesses,  satisfactions,  and  de- 
lights, which  can  possibly  be  conferred  by  the  Lord,  and  that  the  receptacle  thereof  is 
love  truly  conjugial,  which  is  capable  of  receiving  and  perceiving  them  to  a  full  sensi- 
bility '!'  I  replied,  '  They  do  not  know  this,  because  they  have  not  come  to  the  Lord, 
and  lived  according  to  his  precepts  by  shunning  evils  as  sins,  and  by  doing  goods  ;  and 
love  truly  conjugial  with  its  delights  is  solely  from  the  Lord,  and  is  given  to  tliose  who 
live  according  to  his  precepts  ;  tlius  it  is  given  to  those,  who  are  received  into  the  Lord's 
new  church,  which  is  meant  in  the  Apocalypse  by  the  New  Jerusalem.'  To  this  I 
added,  '  I  am  in  doubt  whether  in  the  world  at  this  day  they  are  willing  to  believe,  that 
this  love  in  itself  is  a  spiritual  love,  and  hence  grounded  in  religion,  because  they  en- 
tertain only  a  corporeal  idea  respecting  it.'  They  then  said  unto  me,  '  Write  respecting 
it,  and  follow  revelation  ;  and  afterwards  the  book  written  respecting  it  shall  be  sent 
down  from  us  out  of  heaven,  and  we  shall  see  whether  the  things  contained  in  it  are 
leceived  ;  and  at  the  same  time  whether  they  are  willing  to  acknowledge,  that  that  love 
is  according  to  religion  with  man,  spiritual  with  the  spiritual,  natural  with  the  natural, 
•nd  merely  carnal  with  adulterers." — C.  L.  534. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


237 


that  none  come  into  that  love,  and  can  be  in  it,  but  those  who  approach  the 
Lord,  and  do  the  truths  of  his  cliiirch  and  its  goods,  n.  70,  71.  That  that  love 
is  from  the  Lord  alone,  and  that  hence  it  exists  with  those  who  are  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  n.  131,335,  336.  That  that  love  is  according  to  the  state  of  the 
church,  because  it  is  according  to  the  state  of  wisdom  with  man,  n.  130.  That 
these  things  are  so,  was  confirmed  in  tlie  chapter  throughout,  concerning  the 
correspondence  of  that  love  with  the  marriage  of  the  Lord  and  the  church,  n. 
116  to  131  :  and  in  the  chapter  concerning  the  origin  of  that  love  from  the  mar- 
riage of  good  and  truth,  n.  83  to  102."— C.  L.  457—158. 

No  slight  confirmation  is  afforded  to  this  by  what  Paley  says  of  the  natural 
effect  of  licentiousness.  "  However  it  be  accounted  for,  the  criminal  commerce 
of  the  sexes  corrupts  and  depraves  the  mmd  and  moral  character  more  than  any 
single  species  of  vice  whatsoever.  That  ready  perception  of  guilt,  that  prompt 
and  decisive  resolution  against  it,  which  constitute  a  virtuous  character,  is  sel- 
dom found  in  persons  addicted  to  these  indulgences.  They  prepare  an  easy  ad- 
mission for  every  sin  that  seeks  it,  and  are,  in  low  life,  usually  the  first  stage  in 
men's  progress  to  the  most  desperate  villanies;  and  in  high  life,  to  that  lament- 
ed dissoluteness  of  principle  which  manifests  itself  in  a  profligacy  of  public 
conduct,  and  a  contempt  of  the  obligations  of  religion  and  of  moral  probity. 
Add  to  this,  that  habits  of  libertinism  incapacitate  and  indispose  the  mind  for 
all  intellectual,  and  moral,  and  rehgious  pleasures." — {Mor.  Philos.  B.  in.,  P.  in., 
Ch.  II.) 

Who  but  will  subscribe  to  the  truth  of  this,  though  Swedenborg  alone  has 
solved  the  problem  of  its  rationale .'  Who  can  be  insensible  to  the  immense 
difficulty  of  obtaining  a  lodgment  for  the  claims  of  the  gospel  in  a  mind  thus  de- 
praved and  abandoned  to  the  dominance  of  sensual  appetites  The  moral  sense, 
which  in  other  cases  we  may  hope  to  reach  and  awaken,  is  in  such  persons 
well  nigh  annihilated.  The  plane  into  which  the  Divine  good  and  truth  may 
flow  as  the  ground  of  regeneration  has  with  men  of  this  stamp  all  but  perished, 
and  it  is  a  forlorn  hope  indeed  which  encourages  any  appeal  to  their  inner  man. 
And  if  this  be  so,  is  it  not  a  great  object  to  preserve,  if  possible,  the  life  of  the  con- 
jugial  love  And  where  there  is  danger  of  its  being  lost,  does  it  not  warrant  the 
striking  a  balance  between  the  evil  of  the  extinction  of  such  a  principle,  and  the 
evil  of  the  permitted  yielding,  by  natural  men,  to  the  promptings  of  the  mere 
animal  or  corporeal  instinct  in  which  the  spiritual  principle  is  enwrapped  i  In 
other  words,  is  there  not  an  intrinsic  weight  in  what  is  said  in  the  ensuing  ex- 
tract in  reference  to  the  reasons  on  which  the  provisional  permission  is  founded, 
and  in  respect  to  the  true  relation  which  the  disorderly  bears  to  the  orderly  act- 
ing of  this  radical  love  "This  concubinage  is  not  a  separation  from  conjugial 
love;  for  when  legitimate,  or  just,  or  real  .sufficient  causes  intercede,  persuade, 
and  compel,  conjugial  love  is  not  separated  with  marriage,  but  is  only  interrupt- 
ed ;  and  love  interrupted,  and  not  separated,  remains  in  the  subject:  this  case  is 
like  that  of  a  person  who  is  in  a  function  which  he  loves,  and  is  withheld  from  it 
by  company,  or  by  public  shows,  or  by  travelling  ;  still  he  does  not  lose  the  love 
of  the  function  :  and  it  is  like  that  of  one,  who  loves  generous  men  ;  still,  while 
he  drinks  that  which  is  not  noble,  he  does  not  lose  the  taste  and  appetite  for  that 
which  is  generous.  That  this  concubinage  is  only  a  covering  around  of  conju- 
gial love  is  because  the  love  of  concubinage  is  natural,  and  the  love  of  marriage 
spiritual,  and  natural  love  covers  over  the  spiritual,  while  the  latter  is  intercept- 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


ed ;  that  it  is  so,  the  lover  does  not  know,  because  spiritual  love  is  no  sensibly 
perceived  of  itself,  but  by  means  of  natural ;  and  it  is  felt  as  delight  in  which  is 
blessedness  from  heaven ;  but  natural  love,  by  itself,  is  felt  only  as  delight." 

Intimations  like  these  could  never  have  proceeded  from  the  pure  pen  of  the 
apostle  of  the  New  Church,  were  they  not  founded  upon  a  fundamental  doctrine 
of  conjugial  love  drawn  from  the  very  depths  of  celestial  wisdom — a  doctrine 
which  makes  that  love  the  gem  of  the  soul  and  the  "  recondito^"  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  The  doctrine  may  be  taxed  as  the  wildest  of  the  reveries  incorpo- 
rated into  a  strange  fabric  of  spiritual  mysticisms,  but  the  system  knows  well 
how  to  account  for  such  an  imputation.  "  With  those  who  reject  the  holy  things 
of  the  church,  there  is  not  any  good  love ;  ...  for  all  things  of  the  church  which 
they  reject  are  spiritual ;  and  because  love  truly  conjugial  is  the  fundamental  of 
all  spiritual  loves,  it  is  manifest  that  there  is  an  iutrinsecal  hatred  against 
that,  and  that  the  intrinsecal  or  proper  love  with  them  is  in  favor  of  the  op- 
posite, and  is  the  love  of  adultery ;  wherefore  those  more  than  others  will  laugh 
to  scorn  this  truth,  that  conjugial  love  with  every  one  is  according  to  the  state 
of  the  church  (.with  him);  yea,  at  the  naming  of  love  truly  conjugial  they  will 
perhaps  laugh  outright ;  but  be  it  so  :  nevertheless  they  are  to  be  forgiven,  for  it  is 
as  impossible  for  them  to  distinguish  in  thought  between  the  marriage  embrace 
and  the  scortatory  embrace,  as  it  is  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a 
needle." 

^  We  have  here  the  true  pomt  against  which  all  severity  of  censure,  all  fierce- 

ness of  condemnation,  on  the  score  of  Swedenborg's  scortatory  teaching  must 
spend  itself.  The  intensest  power  of  the  virus  of  his  doctrines  concentrates  itself 
in  the  assertion  of  the  religious  nature  and  the  transcendant  purity  and  sanctity 
of  the  conjugial  principle.  This  is  the  central  and  vital  position  of  the  whole 
doctrine,  and  if  it  be  said  of  the  system  that  thus  viewed  "  the  whole  head 
^  is  sick  and  whole  heart  faint ;  that  from  the  sole  of  the  foot  even  unto  the  head, 
there  is  no  soundness  in  it,  but  wounds  and  bruises  and  putrifying  sores,"  here 
is  the  real  seat  of  the  deadly  gangrene,  in  the  distmct  declaration  of  the  heavenly 
•^"-■^  origin,  the  spiritual  character,  the  angelic  affinities,  of  the  love  of  marriage.  Let 
_  ^  this  position  be  overthrown,  and  we  may  well  waver  in  our  defence.  But  our 
feet  know  no  titubatiorP so  long  as  they  stand  upon  the  immovable  rock  on 
•vi  which  we  feel  that  they  are  planted.  Meantime  we  have  the  satisfaction  of  the 
assurance,  that  we  are  not  called  to  the  vindication  of  a  scheme  of  ethics  which 
transforms  the  evils  of  pellicacy,  adultery,  and  concubmage  into  the  goods  of 
Christian  or  civil  life.  They  are  all  the  evils  of  "  scortation"  in  some  of  its 
forms ;  they  all  pertain  to  the  natural  and  not  to  the  spiritual  man.  The  man 
Avho  is  formed  by  the  genuine  doctrines  of  Swedenborg  has  nothing  to  do  with 
them.  He  is  a  spiritual  man.  "  He  does  not,"  says  Mr.  Bailey,  "  indulge  his  flesh ; 
he  subdues  it.  His  motives  are  pure,  because  derived  from  love  to  God,  and 
pregnant  with  love  to  man.  His  life  is  pure,  because  inspired  by  these.  To  re- 
strain him  from  sin,  it  is  not  necessary  that  all  the  shades  of  evil  should  be  de- 
clared condemnable  in  the  same  degree.  He  can  judge  justly  even  of  the  de- 
praved, without  partaking  of  their  depravity.  He  can  admit  that  fornication  is 
<i-  a  less  evil  than  adultery,  without  being  enticed  to  either.  He  can  acknowledge 
concubinage  to  be  less  interiorly  base  than  incest,  without  being  attracted  by 
concubinage.   He  knows  that  though  this  latter  would  not  plunge  him  into  an 


( ■ 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


239 


abyss  of  impiety  so  abominable  as  many  other  evils,  yet  it  is  of  the  earth,  earthy. 
It  would  retard  hini  in  his  upward  career.    It  would  make  him  the  creature  of 
his  natural  propensities ;  not  their  lord.    It  may  be  an  evil  less  hptlnous  than 
some  others,  but  he  is  to  love  no  evil.   He  is  daily  to  increase  in  the  possessioa 
of  goodness.   It  is  an  insanity  of  a  lighter  kind,  but  he  is  the  follower  of  wisdoju. 
The  world  has  doubtless  its  various  degrees  of  vice,  but  his  aim  is  to  higher 
states  of  purity,  more  full  communion  with  God,  a  more  glorious  impress  of 
heaven.    He  soars,  therefore,  above  all  the  walks  of  vice,  and  daily  makes  it  his 
study  to  acquire  more  fully  the  image,  likeness,  and  spirit  of  his  Master.  .  .  Does 
any  one  ask  whether  we  can  judge  of  the  degrees  of  evils,  and  assign  the  rela- 
tive iniquity  to  each,  without  being  allured  by  the  love  of  any  .'    We  reply,  look    '.'  ■ 
at  our  lives.    Where  is  there  a  real  New  Churchman  who  lives  in  concubinage  ?  i 
Had  Swedenborg  really  recommended  concubinage,  is  it  conceivable  that  out  of  |  % 
so  many  who  have  embraced  his  views,  not  one  should  practise  it?   When  John  ■ 
said,  'AH  unrighteousness  is  sin;  and  there  is  a  sin  not  unto  death;'  was  he' 
preaching  up  these  sins     He  was  but  discriminating  truly.    And  when  Swe-  : 
denborg  distinguishes  one  crime  from  another,  he  does  not  sanction  the  commis-  . 
sion  of  any,  but  accords  to  each  its  proper  condemnation." — {Baileifs  Reply  to^ 
Roebuck,  p.  34.) 

(6.)  Another  consideration  of  the  utmost  moment  to  a  fair  estimate  of  Sweden- 
borg's  averments  on  this  subject,  is  the  doctrine  of  imputation,  or  the  ground  of 
judgment,  by  which  the  whole  matter  is  Avound  up,  eclaircisedfand  guarded?  and 
which  yet  is  next  to  never  adverted  to  by  his  opponents.  There  is  obviously  no 
question  of  more  importance  to  a  candidate  for  eternity  than  that  which  con- 
cerns the  grounds  and  reasons  of  the  judgment  that  fixes  unalterably  his  state  in 
the  other  world.  That  these  have  relation  to  his  character  as  good  or  evil,  can 
admit  of  no  doubt;  his  works  and  deeds  enter  into  the  account  no  farther  than 
as  they  are  a  true  index  to  the  internal  man,  or,  in  one  word,  to  the  heart. 

"  It  is  well  known,  that  there  are  two  principles  which  make  a  man's  life,  the'^f^ 
will  and  the  understanding;  and  that  all  things  which  are  done  by  a  man,  are  ^  ^ 
done  from  his  will  and  his  understanding ;  and  that  without  these  acting  prin-  '\ 
ciples  a  man  would  not  have  either  action  or  speech,  otherwise  than  as  a  ma- 
chine :  hence  it  is  evident,  that  such  as  a  man's  will  and  understanding  are,  such 
is  the  man;  and  further,  that  a  man's  action  in  itself  is  such,  as  is  the  affection 
of  his  will  which  produces  it,  and  that  a  man's  discourse  in  itself  is  such,  as  is 
the  thought  of  his  understanding  which  produces  it:  wherefore  several  men 
■  may  act  and  speak  alike,  and  yet  they  act  and  speak  unlike  ;  one  from  a  de- 
praved will  and  thought,  the  other  from  an  upright  will  and  thought.    From  these 
considerations  it  is  manifest,  what  is  meant  by  the  deeds  or  works,  according 
to  which  every  one  will  be  judged  ;  that  will  and  understanding  are  meant,  con- 
sequently that  by  evil  works  are  meant  the  works  of  an  evil  will,  whatever  has 
been  their  appearance  in  externals,  and  that  by  good  works  are  meant  the  works 
of  a  good  will,  although  in  externals  they  have  appeared  like  the  works  wrought 
by  an  evil  man.    All  things  which  are  done  from  a  man's  interior  will,  are  done 
from  purpose  ;  since  that  will  proposes  to  itself  what  it  acts  by  its  intention ;  and 
all  things  which  are  done  from  the  understanding,  are  done  from  confirmation, 
since  the  understanding  confirms.    From  these  considerations  it  may  appear,  ^  ^ 
that  evil  or  good  is  imputed  to  every  one  according  to  the  quality  of  his  will  t.  X 
therein,  and  according  to  the  quality  of  his  understanding  concerning  them.  f>  r\ 
These  observations  I  am  allowed  to  confirm  by  the  following  relation :  In  the 
spiritual  world  I  have  met  several,  who  in  the  natural  world  had  lived  like  oth-  ,v 
ers,  being  sumptuous  in  their  apparel,  costly  in  their  entertainments,  frequenting  jf 
the  exhibitions  of  the  stage,  jesting  on  love  topics  as  from  a  libidinous  principle; 

— — — ^  I  :  I 


240 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


with  other  Uke  practices ;  and  yet  the  angels  charged  those  things  to  some  as 
evils  of  sin,  and  to  some  they  did  not  impute  them  as  evils,  and  declared  the  lat- 
ter guiltless,  but  the  former  guilty.  Being  questioned  why  they  did  so,  when  yet 
all  had  done  alike,  they  replied,  that  they  view  all  from  purpose,  intention,  or 
end,  and  distinguish  accordingly;  and  that  therefore  they  excuse  or  condemn 
those  whom  the  end  either  excuses  or  condemns,  since  an  end  of  good  influ- 
ences all  in  heaven,  and  an  end  of  evil  all  in  hell." — C.  L.  527. 

The  character  of  the  man,  then,  is  the  character  of  his  will,  or  in  other  words 
of  his  ruling  love,  and  this  character  is  continually  being  formed  and  inscribed 
upon  his  inmost  being,  by  the  course  of  his  acting  in  the  present  life.  This  char- 
acter is  latent  to  human  view  while  man  sojourns  upon  the  earth,  and  there- 
fore it  is  evermore  unla\vful  for  a  fellow-being  to  pronounce  upon  it,  as  we  are 
taught  in  what  follows : — 

>  "  The  Lord  says.  Judge  not  that  te  may  not  be  condemned  (Matt.  vii.  1) ;  by 
I  r  "which  words  cannot  in  anywise  be  meant  judgment  respecting  any  on^'s  moral 
J;  ^and  civil  life  in  the  world,  but  judgment  respecting  his  spiritual  and  celestial  life. 
L*-.  »"Who  does  not  see,  that  unless  it  was  allowed  a  man  to  judge  respecting  the 
moral  life  of  those  who  live  with  himin  the  world,  society  would  perish  What 
would  society  be,  if  there  were  no  public  judicature,  and  if  every  one  did  not 
exercise  his  judgment  respecting  another.'  But  to  judge  what  is  the  quality  of 
the  interior  mind,  or  soul,  thus  what  is  the  quality  of  any  one's  spkitual  state, 
and  thence  what  his  lot  is  after  death,  is  not  allowed,  since  it  is  known  to  the 
Lord  alone  ;  neither  does  the  Lord  reveal  this  till  after  the  person's  decease,  to 
the  intent  that  every  one  may  act  from  a  free  principle  in  all  he  acts,  and  thereby 
that  good  or  evil  may  be  from  him,  and  thus  in  him,  and  that  thence  he  may  live  to 
hirnself  and  live  his  own  to  eternity.  The  reason  why  the  interiors  of  the  mind, 
which  are  kept  hid  in  the  world,  ore  revealed  after  death,  is,  because  this  is  of 
concern  and  advantage  to  the  societies  into  which  man  then  comes ;  for  all  in 
those  societies  are  spiritual.  That  those  interiors  are  then  revealed,  is  manifest 
from  these  words  of  the  Lord,  '  There  is  nothing  concealed,  which  shall  not  be 
revealed,  or  hidden,  which  shall  not  be  known ;  therefore  whatsoever  things  ye 
have  said  in  darkness,  shall  be  heard  in  light ;  and  what  ye  have  spoken  to  the 
ear  in  closets,  shall  be  preached  on  the  house-tops'  (Luke  xii.  2,  3).  A  common 
judgment,  as  this  for  instance, '  If  you  are  such  in  internals  as  you  appear  to  be 
in  externals,  you  will  be  saved  or  condemned,'  is  allowed ;  but  a  particular 
judgment,  as  this  for  instance, '  You  are  such  in  internals,  therefore  you  will  be 
saved  or  condemned,'  is  not  allowed.  Judgment  concerning  the  spiritual  life  of 
man,  or  the  internal  life  of  the  soul,  is  meant  by  the  imputation  which  is  here 
-treated  of.  Can  any  human  being  know  and  decide  who  is  a  scortator  in  heart, 
;and  who  is  a  conjugial  partner  in  heart And  yet  the  thoughts  of  the  heart, 
which  are  tlie  purposes  of  the  will,  judge  every  one." — C.  L.  523. 


I  This  then  discloses  to  ns  the  true  nature  of  that  imputation  which  awaits  every 
one  in  the  world  to  come,  and  which  our  author  teaches  is  as  far  as  possible 
from  a  mere  judicial  reckoning  or  accounting  any  one  to  be  either  good  or  evifon 
any  other  ground  than  the  actual  intrinsic  quality  of  the  man.  It  is  no  other  in 
fact  than  the  simple  manifestation  of  the  truth  as  it  is.  The  character  in  its  in- 
most attributes  is  necessarily  revealed,  in  the  world  of  spirits,  by  the  very  law 
of  our  being,  and  consequently  the  man  virtually  adjudges  himself  to  heavea  or 
hell  by  the  development  which  is  made  of  his  interior  affinities  witl^the  one  or 
the  other.    Swedenborg  speaking  on  this  head,  remarks  : — 

"  In  order  that  this  may  be  understood,  I  will  relate  an  arcanum  :  Heaven  is  dis- 
tinguished into  innumerable  societies,  in  like  manner  hell,  derived  from  an  op- 
posite principle  ;  and  the  mind  of  every  man,  ajccording  to  his  will  and  conse- 
quent understanding,  actually  dwells  in  one  society,  and  intends  and  thmks  in 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


like  manner  with  those  wlio  compose  the  society.  If  the  mind  be  in  any  society 
of  heaven,  it.  tlieu  intends  and  thinks  in  like  manner  with  those  who  compose 
that  society  ;  if  it  he  in  any  society  of  hell,  it  intends  and  thinks  in  like  manner 
with  those  who  are  in  the  same  society;  but  so  long  as  a  man  lives  in  the  world, 
so  long  he  migrates  from  one  society  to  another,  according  to  the  changes  of  the 
affections  of  his  will  and  of  the  consecjuent  thoughts  of  his  mind  ;  but  after  death 
his  peregrinations  are  collected,  and  from  the  collection  thereof  into  one,  a  place 
is  allotted  him,  in  hell  if  he  is  evil,  in  heaven  if  he  is  good." — C.  L.  530. 

As  therefore  the  internal  character  there  stands  out,  as  it  were,  in  legible  aspect, 
it  is  subject  to  the  exploration  of  good  spirits,  whose  judgment  of  the  man  coin- 
cides with  that  of  the  Lord  himself,  because  they  are,  in  their  measure,  in  the 
divine  good  and  truth  which  becomes  the  criterion  that  determines  his  final 
allotment. 

"  That  every  one's  own  life  remains  with  him  after  death,  it  is  known  in  the 
church  from  the  Word,  and  from  these  passages  therein  ;  '  The  Son  of  man  will 
come,  and  will  then  render  to  every  one  according  to  his  deeds'  (Matt.  xvi.  27). 
'  I  saw  the  books  open,  and  all  were  judged  according  to  their  works'  (Rev.  xxi. 
12,  13).  '  In  the  day  of  judgment  God  will  render  to  every  one  according  to  his 
works'  (Rom.  ii.  6;  2  Cor.  v.  10).  The  works,  according  to  which  it  will  be 
rendered  to  every  one,  are  the  life,  because  the  life  does  the  works,  and  they  are 
according  to  the  life.  As  I  have  been  permitted  for  several  years  to  be  together 
with  the  angels,  and  to  converse  with  the  deceased,  I  can  testify  for  certain,  that 
every  one  is  then  explored  as  to  the  qviality  of  the  life  which  he  has  lived,  and 
that  the  life  which  he  has  contracted  m  the  world,  abides  with  him  to  eternity. 
I  have  conversed  with  those  who  have  lived  ages  ago,  whose  life  I  have  been 
acquainted  with  from  history,  and  I  have  known  it  to  be  like  the  description 
given  of  it ;  and  I  have  heard  from  the  angels,  that  no  one's  life  after  death  can 
be  changed,  because  it  is  organized  according  to  his  love  and  consequent  works ; 
and  that  if  it  were  changed,  the  organization  would  be  rent  asunder,  which  can- 
not be  done  in  any  case  ;  also  that  a  change  of  organization  cannot  possibly  be 
effected  except  in  the  material  body,  and  is  utterly  impossible  in  the  spiritual 
body,  after  the  former  has  been  rejected.  That  to  an  evil  person  is  then  imput- 
ed the  evil  of  his  life,  and  to  a  good  person  is  imputed  the  good  of  his  life,  it  is 
to  be  observed,  that  the  imputation  of  evil  is  not  accusation,  incusation,  inculpa- 
tion, and  judication,  as  in  the  world,  but  evil  itself  produces  this  effect;  for  the 
evil,  from  their  free  principle,  separate  themselves  from  the  good,  inasmuch  as 
they  cannot  be  together.  The  delights  of  the  love  of  evil  are  averse  from  the 
delights  of  the  love  of  good ;  and  delights  exhale  from  every  one,  as  odors  do 
from  every  vegetable  in  the  world  ;  for  they  are  not  absorbed  and  concealed  by 
the  material  body  as  heretofore,  but  flow  forth  freely  from  their  loves  into  the 
spiritual  aura:  and  whereas  evil  is  there  made  sensible  as  in  its  odor,  it  is  this 
which  accuses,  incuses,  fixes  blame,  and  judges — not  before  any  judge,  but  be- 
fore every  one  who  is  principled  in  good ;  and  thi$  is  what  is  meant  by  imputa- 
tion. Moreover,  an  evil  person  chooses  companions,  with  whom  he  may  live 
in  his  delights  :  and  because  he  is  averse  from  the  delight  of  good,  he  spontane- 
ously betakes  himself  to  his  own  in  hell.  The  imputation  of  good  is  effected  in 
like  manner,  and  takes  place  witfi  those  who  in  the  world  have  acknowledged 
that  all  good  in  them  is  from  the  Lord,  and  nothing  from  themselves.  These, 
after  they  have  been  prepared,  are  let  into  the  interior  delights  of  good,  and  then 
there  is  opened  to  them  a  way  into  heaven,  to  the  society  where  its  homogene- 
ous delights  are  :  this  is  effected  by  the  Lord." — C.  L.  524. 

The  result  of  the  whole  is  summed  up  in  what  follows,  from  which  it  appears 
that  judgment  proceeds  according  to  the  real  internal  state  and  quality  of  the 
will  by  which  action  is  prompted,  for  it  is  from  this  that  their  character  is  viewed 
and  estimated  by  Him  who  "  searcheth  the  hearts  and  trieth  the  reins  of  the  chil- 
dren of  men." 

16 


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REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


"  Now  since  all  in  hell  are  influenced  by  a  will  of  evil,  all  are  viewed  there 
from  that  will ;  and  since  all  in  heaven  are  influenced  by  a  will  of  good,  all  are 
viewed  there  from  that  will ;  wherefore  imputations  after  death  take  place  ac- 
cording to  the  quality  of  every  one's  will  and  understanding.  The  case  is  simi- 
lar with  scortations,  whether  they  be  fornications,  pellicacies,  concubinages,  or 
adulteries ;  for  those  things  are  imputed  to  every  one,  not  according  to  the  deeds 
themselves,  but  according  to  the  state  of  tlie  mind  in  the  deedsf  for  deeds  follow 
the  body  into  the  tomb,  whereas  the  mind  rises  again.  Appearances  in  exter- 
nals conclude  nothing  concerning  imputation  :  the  one  single  thing  which  con- 
cludes is  the  conjugial  principle,  in  that  it  abides  in  every  one's  will,  and  is 
guarded,  in  whatever  state  of  marriage  a  man  is.  That  conjugial  principle  is 
like  a  scale,  in  which  that  love  is  weighed  ;  for  the  conjugial  principle  of  one  man 
with  one  wife  is  the  storehouse  of  human  life,  and  the  reservoir  of  the  Christian 
religion ;  and  this  being  the  case,  it  is  possible  that  that  love  may  exist  with  one 
married  partner,  and  not  at  the  same  time  with  the  other;  and  that  it  may  lie 
deeper  hid,  than  that  the  man  himself  can  observe  anything  concerning  it;  and 
also  it  may  be  inscribed  in  a  successive  progress  of  the  lite.  The  reason  of  this 
is,  because  that  love  in  its  progress  accompanies  religion,  and  religion,  as  it  is 
the  marriage  of  the  Lord  and  the  church,  is  the  initiament  and  inoculation  of  that 
love  ;  wherefore  conjugial  love  is  imputed  to  every  one  after  death  according 
to  his  spiritual  rational  life ;  and  for  him,  to  whom  that  love  is  imputed,  a  mar- 
riage in  heaven  is  provided  after  his  decease,  whatever  has  been  his  marriage 
in  the  world.  From  these  considerations  then  results  this  short  concluding  ob- 
servation, that  no  inference  is  to  be  drawn  concerning  any  one,  from  appear- 
ances of  marriages,  nor  from  appearances  of  scortations,  whereby  to  decide  that 
he  has  conjugial  love  or  not;  wherefore  Judge  not,  lest  ye  be  condemned  (^l^lU 
vii.  1)."— C.  L.530,  531. 

I  know  not  that  any  special  comment  upon  these  extracts  is  called  for.  If 
they  do  not  approve  themselves  by  their  own  evidence  to  the  reflecting  mind,  it 
is  not  probable  that  their  claims  to  belief  could  be  enforced  by  any  remarks  of 
mine.  Yet  the  principles  advanced  in  them  obviously  lie  at  the  foundation  of 
the  whole  subject.  The  leading  drift  of  Swedenborg's  doctrine  is,  that  altliough 
•  Truth  is  in  itself  as  inimitable  as  its  source,  yet  in  its  descent  into  the  minds 
of  all  created  beings  it  is  accommodated  to  their  states  of  reception.  The  degree 
of  every  man's  duty  is  measured  by  the  degree  of  truth  of  which  he  is  in  posses- 
sion; he  fulfds  his  duty  in  proportion  as  he  is  faithful  to  that  trath.  Thoughts 
and  actions  are  regarded  as  more  or  less  sinful  according  as  they  are  more  or 
less  opposed  to  revealed  truth,  and  according  also  to  the  purity  and  elevation  of 
'the  truths  to  which  they  are  opposed.  In  judging,  therefore,  of  the  character  of 
^Uie  moral  actions  of  different  men,  we  are  led  to  inquire  as  to  the  degree  in 
^which  their  minds  are  opened  to  the  light  of  truth,  which  involves  an  admission 
of  the  fact,  that  truth  is  variously  accommodated  to  the  state  of  mind  of  the  re- 
cipient, and  that  the  same  measure  of  virtue,  or  exemption  from  vice,  is  not  to 
be  expected  of  all.  Whatever  degree  of  truth,  however,  be  actually  received,  it 
is  adapted,  in  its  own  nature,  to  raise  every  man  from  the  state  of  evil  in  which 
he  may  be  to  a  higher  state.  Its  offlce  is  continually  to  lessen  the  interval  of 
separation  or  spiritual  distance  from  the  Lord,  and  to  elevate  and  bring  back  and 
save  the  soul  as  far  and  as  fast  as  it  can  be  done  consistently  with  the  preser\-a- 
tion  of  freedom.  The  message  of  truth  is  essentially  the  same  to  men  of  all  char- 
acters  and  conditions.  It  says  to  all ;  "Repent ;  put  away  the  evil  of  your  do- 
ings from  before  mine  eyes ;  if  any  man  will  come  after  me,  let  him  deny  him- 
self, and  take  up  his  cross,  and  follow  me."  But  in  accordance  with  the  internal 
state  of  every  one,  it  requires  of  him  less,  for  the  time  being,  tlian  of  one  who  is 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


24a 


in  a  higher  state.  But  one  degree  of  obedience  to  truth  received  prepares  the 
way  for  a  higher  and  purer  form  of  it,  and  for  a  corresponding  obedience  ;  and 
in  the  other  hfe  judgment  or  imputation  will  be  strictly  according  to  the  degree  of 
obedience  rendered  to  the  light  of  truth  enjoyed.  "  A  man,"  says  Swedenborg, 
"  from  rational  conviction,  according  to  circumstances  and  contingencies,  may' 
absolve  a  person  when  a  judge,  whilst  he  sits  in  judgment,  cannot  absolve  from 
the  law ;  and  also  a  judge  may  absolve  a  person  who  after  death  is  condemned. 
The  reason  is,  becau.se  a  judge  gives  sentence  according  to  actions  done,  where- 
as after  death  everyone  is  judged  according  to  the  intentions  of  the  will,  and 
thence  of  the  understanding,  and  according  to  the  confirmations  of  the  under- 
standing and  thence  of  the  will.  These  intentions  and  confirmations  a  judge 
does  not  see;  nevertheless  each  judgment  is  just,  one  for  the  sake  of  the  good 
of  civil  society,  the  other  for  the  sake  of  the  good  of  heavenly  society."  The 
leading  idea  is  well  expressed  in  the  following  paragraphs : — "  To  those  who  are 
in  a  less  degree  of  evil,  or  are  less  confirmed  in  evil,  truth  is  accommodated  so 
as  to  teach  just  so  much  as  they  are  in  a  .state  to  comprehend  and  improve.  It 
teaches  them  to  repent,  and  how  to  repent.  It  does  not  at  first,  disclose  to  them 
the  highest  degrees  of  purity,  nor  any  degree  distinctly,  except  that  which  is  the 
next  above  their  own  state.  It  teaches  them  to  fear  becoming  more  evil,  and 
how  to  avoid  it;  and  it  also  shows  them  plainly  what  is  the  next  less  evil 
state,  and  how  to  shun  their  present  measure  of  evil  and  advance  to  that  state. — 
I  do  not  mean  to  be  understood  strictly  as  saying  that  this  is  the  exact  order  in 
which  men  are  enlightened.  Some  who  are  very  evil,  do  understand  trath 
which  they  will  not  improve,  and  hence  are  made  worse  by  it.  But  the  Divine 
Providence  guards  evil  men  against  being  thus  enlightened,  so  far  as  it  can 
guard  them  and  still  allow  their  free  agency.  Truth  as  it  thus  comes  down  to 
the  conditions  of  men  in  various  degrees  and  kinds  of  evil,  does,  at  first,  exact 
greater  degrees  of  holiness  or  purity  of  some,  than  of  others ;  but  its  end  with 
each  one  is  the  same.  It  teaches  each  one  to  rise ;  and  having  taught  him  and 
enabled  him  to  rise  one  degree,  it  teaches  and  enables  him  to  rise  another  degree. 
It  indulges  less  evils  to  prevent  greater;  and  teaches  man  continually  that,  al- 
though he  can  never  become  absolutely  good,  yet  he  can  shun  evils,  and  receive 
good  from  the  Lord.  And  by  shunning  the  evil  actions  to  which  his  present 
evil  affections  lead,  he  will  continually  advance  in  the  work  of  repentance  and 
reformation,  provided  he  shuns  them  because  they  are  sins  against  God. 

"  To  the  Jews  many  laws  and  permissions  were  given,  not  because  they  were 
right  or  orderly  in  themselves,  but  because  the  state  of  Jewish  minds  required^^ 
them.  They  could  not  receive  purer  truths  or  precepts  of  life.  Because  of  the  c 
hardness  of  their  hearts  Moses  wrollfe  those  things.  Such  were  the  laws  respect- 
ing sacrifices,  and  some  of  the  laws  respecting  retaliation.  Such  also  were  the 
permissions  concerning  concubinage,  and  putting  away  their  wives  for  slight 
causes.  (See  Matt.  xix.  3-12).  Without  proceeding  farther  with  this  view,  I 
say  that  Divine  truth,  in  that  degree  of  it  which  descended  to  the  Jewish  state  of 
character,  required  a  less  degree  of  purity  than  it  requires  of  angels,  or  of  any 
men  who  are  elevated  in  any  degree  above  Jewish  character.  Men  of  every  re- 
ligious sect  act  on  this  principle,  so  far  as  they  follow  the  Lord,  in  judging  of  their 
fellow-men.  VVho  is  there,  who  is  regarded  as  judging  fairly,  that  does  not 
make  allowance  and  excuses  for  his  neighbor  on  account  of  his  strong  hereditary^ 


244 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


propensities  to  certain  evils, — his  bad  education, — his  long  habits  of  sin  before 
he  commenced  reformation, — the  short  time  that  he  has  had  for  reformation 
since  he  commenced  it— and  on  many  other  considerations.  And  where  is  the 
wrong  of  saying  to  our  neighbor, '  My  friend,  you  are  greatly  immersed  in  evil, 
and  are  sadly  enslaved  by  it.  You  can,  however,  do  better  than  yon  are  accus- 
tomed to  do  :  You  can  avoid  the  present  gross  degree  of  your  evil,  and  do  thus 
and  so  to  mitigate  it,  and  elevate  yourself  above  your  present  state,  even  if  you 
cannot  avoid  the  whole  evil ;  and  by  such  improvement  you  will  be  prepared 
for  still  greater  reformation,  and  will  avoid  sinking  lower :  Do  as  well  as  you  can ; 
and  if  you  cannot  be  perfect,  or  rise  at  once  even  to  the  purity  of  the  best  of  men, 
yet  rise  as  much  as  you  can,  and  keep  on  rising.' " — (^Remarks  on  Several  Common  Er- 
rors respecting  the  Writings  of  Swedenborg,  p.  42,  46.) 

The  principle  in  all  this  is,  I  think,  easily  perceived  to  be  a  sound  one,  and 
that  it  is  Scriptural  appears  from  its  being  said  of  the  servant  that  knew  his 
Lord's  will  and  did  it  not,  that  he  should  "  be  beaten  with  many  stripes,"  while 
"he  that  knew  not,  and  did  commit  things  worthy  of  stripes,  shall  be  beaten  witli 
few  stripes."  The  law  of  this  proceeding  is  then  stated ;  "  Unto  whom  much 
is  given,  of  him  shall  be  much  required."  So  agam,  our  Lord  says  to  the  Jews, 
"If  ye  were  blind,  ye  should  have  no  sin;  but  now  ye  say.  We  see  ;  therefore 
your  sin  remaineth."  This  principle  evidently  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  that 
Swedenborg  has  taught  concerning  the  grounds  of  judicial  imputation  in  respect 
to  the  class  of  sins  and  evils  treated  of  in  the  work  on  Scortatory  Love,  and  I 
leave  it  to  be  pronounced  upon  according  to  the  verdict  formed  in  your  own 
and  every  intelligent  mind. 

I  had  intended  to  notice,  at  an  earlier  stage  of  the  discussion,  one  other  pas- 
sage occurring  in  the  preface  to  your  work,  and  to  which  I  cannot  but  advert, 
though  it  must  be  briefly.  It  bears  directly  on  the  topic  which  I  have  last  con- 
sidered. 

"  The  precepts  of  Swedenborg  respecting  works  of  charity  and  various  other 
duties,  are  generally  what  they  should  be.  But  his  precepts,  or  rather  the  per- 
missions he  gives,  respecting  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes  in  particular  cases,  must 
be  reprobated  by  every  pure  and  pious  mind.  And  T  should  by  no  means  have 
deemed  it  proper  to  publish  tliem  in  these  Lectures,  liad  not  judicious  men  who 
have  been  consulted,  given  advice  in  favor  of  it,  and  had  it  not  been  plainly  de- 
manded by  fidelity  to  the  cause  of  truth.  And  should  any  admirer  of  Sweden- 
borg attempt  to  apologize  for  him  by  saying,  that  the  principles  of  Scortatory 
love  which  he  has  pubhshed,  come  up  from  the  hells,  or  are  dictated  by  evil 
spirits;  my  reply  is,  that  we  are  far  from  wishing  the  morals  of  the  hells  to  be 
published  for  the  use  of  men  on  the  earth,  who  are  quite  enough  inclined  to 
travel  the  downward  road,  without  the  help  of  a  book,  written  by  the  Prophet 
of  the  New  Jerusalem  church,  and  containing  the  precepts  or  permissions  of 
devils.  Nor  can  we  think  it  any  credit  to  Swedenborg,  that  he  should  have  a 
voluntary  agency  in  bringing  out  principles  of  such  an  infernal  character  before 
the  face  of  the  world,  and  should  do  it  not  only  without  blushing,  but  expressly 
with  his  own  sanction." — p.  6. 

I  should  probably  be  greatly  at  a  lo.ss  to  point  to  any  single  paragraph  in  your 
book,  so  laden  with  matter  of  astonishment  as  this.  I  can  scarcely  doubt  that 
you  will  yourself  share  in  the  astonishment  upon  a  cool  review.  The  develop- 
ment of  hellish  promptings  equivalent  to  teaching,  i.  e.  incidcating,  the  morals  of 
the  hells  !  The  intimation  has  but  to  be  named  to  make  palpable  its  absurdity. 
Who  ever  heard  of  auch  a  charge  before  ?   It  is  no  credit,  you  say,  to  Sweden- 


^ec^    Sec:  7<T^(  .    Oi  . 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


245 


borg  that  "  he  should  have  a  vohmtary  agency  in  bringing  out  principles  of  such 
an  infernal  character  before  the  face  of  the  world."  And  what  then,  I  pray  you, 
becomes  of  the  credit  of  Paul  in  reciting  such  a  catalogue  of  the  works  of  the 
flesh  as  the  following ; — "  Adultery,  fornication,  luicleanness,  lasciviousness,9 
idolatry,  witchcraft,  hatred,  variance,  emulations,  wrath,  strife,  seditions,  here- [J 
sies,  envyings,  murders,  drunkenness,  revellings,  and  .such  like;  of  which  I  tell 
you  before  as  I  have  also  told  you  in  time  past,  that  they  which  do  such  things, 
shall  not  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God."  Are  not  these  things  from  hell  ?  Are  theyfi 
not  the  inbreathed  lustings  of  the  devil,  the  "  god  of  this  world,  who  rules  in  the 
children  of  disobedience  .'"  But  is  the  apostle  in  reciting  them  inculcating  upon 
his  fellow-men  a  system  of  infernal  morality  ?  Does  he  endorse  "  the  doctrines 
of  devils,"  and  endeavor  to  make  them  pass  current  among  good  Christians  by 
the  weight  of  his  sanction  and  authority  ?  Is  it  the  same  thing  to  detect  and  ex- 
pose and  characterise  the  subtle  influences  of  the  spirits  of  darkness,  in  order  to 
put  men  on  their  guard  against  them,  and  to  approve,  patronize,  and  enjoin  them 
Does  not  the  wisdom  of  Solomon  inform  us,  that  "  in  vain  is  the  net  spread  in 
sight  of  any  bird  Can  men  be  secured  against  the  assaults  of  hell  unless  its 
diabolical  wiles  and  influxes  are  clearly  pointed  out Must  we  be  left  ignorant 
of  Satan's  devices  for  fear  that  the  exposure  of  them  will  be  mistaken  for  a  com- 
mendation of  their  cunning  and  craft?  Is  the  man  who  publishes  a  "  counterfeit- 
detector"  liable  to  an  indictment  for  endeavoring  to  palm  bad  bills  upon  the  com- 
munity? I  confess  myself  altogether  nonplussed  by  your  logic  in  this  passage. 
What  can  be  your  meaning  in  speaking  of  Swedenborg's  work  on  this  subject  as 
"  containing  the  precepts  or  permissions  of  devils  ?"  It  contains  no  precepts  at  all, 
and  as  to  permissions,  he  speaks  of  the  permissions  of  heaven,  and  not  of  hell. 
How  this  is  to  be  understood,  I  have  already  explained.  It  is  a  doctrine  which 
cannot  be  objected  to  without  arraigning  at  once  the  clearest  demonstrations  of 
the  Divine  providence  and  the  most  express  letter  of  the  Old  Testament.  Do 
yoji  suppose  that  Moses  was  teaching"  the  morals  of  the  hells"  when  he  author-', 
ized  the  giving  of  a  concubine  by  a  father  to  his  son,  as  a  succedaneum  for  a 
wife  till  he  became  sub.sequently  married  to  another?.^  Let  it  be  shown  that 
Swedenborg  has  uttered  one  sentence  by  way  of  absolute  approval  of  any  of  the 
forms  of  scortation  which  he  declares  to  originate  from  infernal  sources,  and  we 
shall  then  admit  the  charge  in  all  its  gravamen,  but  not  till  then. 

On  the  subject  of  Adultery  and  the  remaining  forms  of  Seortatory  transgression, 
I  do  not  deem  it  needful  to  en!arge.  They  all  come  into  the  same  general  cate- 
gory with  the  preceding,  and  I  believe  that  as  Swedenborg  condemns  adulteiy 
in  all  its  forms,  and  degrees,  as  also  all  kinds  of  violations  of  female  innocence, 
and  that  too  under  the  most  fearful  sanctions,  comparatively  little  fault  is  found 
with  this  department  of  his  work.  To  one  sentence,  however,  quoted  above 
from  your  Lectures,  I  must  for  a  moment  advert.  It  refers  to  the  fact  of  Sweden- 
borg's maintaining  that  the  crime  of  adultery  is  distinguished  by  different  degrees 
of  mildness  and  aggravation.  "  Our  author  goes  still  further,  and  palliates  the 
crime  of  adultery  in  other  circumstances ;  namely,  '  when  a  wife  by  craftiness 
captivates  a  man's  mind,  enticing  him  into  her  bed-chamber,  and  inflaming  his 
passions,  or  when  a  man  entices  another  man's  wife  and  inflames  her  passions. 
These  and  like  circumstances,  he  says, — operate  as  reasonable  aiDologies  ui 
favor  of  the  party  seduced.' "   This,  however,  is  not  his  language.    "  That 


246 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


these  and  like  contingent  circumstances  lessen  the  grievousness  of  adultery,  and 
give  a  milder  turn  to  the  predications  of  the  blame  thereof,  in  favor  of  the  party 
seduced,  is  agreeable  to  the  dictates  and  conclusions  of  reason."  And,  pray,  is 
it  not .'  Does  not  every  man  assent  to  the  truth  of  the  principle I  do  not  ask 
whether  such  circumstances  excuse  the  crime,  but  do  they  not  palliate  it  ? — which 
is  all  that  Swedenborg  affirms.  Let  the  reader  judge  for  himself  of  the  soundness 
of  what  follows. 

"  There  are  two  principles,  which,  in  the  beginning,  with  every  man  who  from 
natural  is  made  spiritual,  are  at  strife  together,  which  are  commonly  called  the 
spirit  and  the  flesh  ;  and  since  the  love  of  marriage  is  of  the  spirit,  and  the  love 
of  adultery  is  of  the  flesh,  in  such  case  there  is  also  a  combat  between  those 
loves.  If  the  love  of  marriage  conquers,  it  gains  dominion  over  and  subjugates 
the  love  of  adultery,  which  is  effected  by  its  removal ;  but  if  it  happens,  that  the 
lust  of  the  flesh  is  excited  to  a  heat  greater  than  what  the  spirit  can  control  from 
reason,  it  follows  that  the  state  is  inverted,  and  the  heat  of  lust  infuses  allur- 
ments  into  the  spirit,  to  such  a  degree,  that  it  is  no  longer  master  of  its  reason 
and  thence  of  itself :  this  is  meant  by  adulteries  of  the  second  degree,  which  are 
committed  by  those  who  indeed  are  able  to  consult  the  understanding,  but  by 
reason  of  contingent  causes  at  the  moment  are  not  able.  But  the  matter  may  be 
illustrated  by  particular  cases;  as  in  case  a  meretricious  wife  by  craftiness 
captivates  a  man's  mind  enticing  him  into  her  bed-chamber,  and  inflam- 
ing his  passions  to  such  a  degree  as  to  leave  him  no  longer  master  of  his  judg- 
ment; and  especially  if,  on  such  occasion,  she  threatens  to  expose  him  if  he 
does  not  consent :  in  like  manner,  in  case  any  meretricious  wife  is  well  skilled 
in  deceitful  allurements,  or  by  powerful  stimulants  inflames  the  man  to  such  a 
"egree,  that  the  raging  lust  of  the  flesh  deprives  the  understanding  of  the  free 
use  of  reason  :  in  like  manner,  in  case  a  man,  by  powerful  enticements,  so  far 
works  upon  another's  wife,  as  to  leave  her  no  longer  mistress  of  herself,  by  rea- 
son of  the  fire  kindled  in  her  will ;  besides  other  like  cases.  That  these  and 
similar  contingent  circumstances  lessen  the  grievousness  of  adultery,  and  give  a 
milder  turn  to  the  predications  of  the  blame  thereof  in  favor  of  the  party  seduced, 
is  agreeable  to  the  dictates  aud  conclusions  of  reasons." — C.  L.  488. 

Is  it  possible  that  you  should  have  any  question  as  to  the  truth  of  the  distinc- 
tion here  asserted  ?  Is  it  not  the  universal  sense  of  mankind,  that  every  crime  is 
more  or  less  aggravated  according  to  the  circumstances  accompanying  it .'  Does 
not  every  judge  in  the  land  act  on  this  principle,  and  do  not  all  laws  recognize 
its  validity Who  does  not  know  that  even  the  taking  of  human  life,  is  regard- 
ed as  more  or  less  a  heinous  crime  according  to  its  circumstances  ?  Does  not  a 
fixed  aud  deliberate  purpose,  prompted  by  malice  prepense,  constitute  the  slayer 
a  murderer,  whereas  if  the  rash  act  has  been  perpetrated  in  a  moment  of  sud- 
den excitement,  when  the  judgment  was  overthrown  by  the  violence  of  passion,  a 

"  verdict  of  manslaughter  only  is  rendered Do  you  really  suppose  that  no  heavier 
condemnation  should  be  awarded  to  David,  who  committed  adultery  with  Bath- 
sheba  of  set  purpose,  while  her  husband  was  fighting  the  battles  of  his  country, 
and  who  procured  that  husband  to  be  slain  to  conceal  his  baseness,  than  should 
have  been  meted  out  to  Joseph,  had  he  fallen  before  the  enticements  and  threat- 
enings  of  his  mistress  If  so,  your  standard  of  the  criminality  of  actions  must 
be  a  very  strange  one  ;  and  yet  I  am  unable  to  see  upon  what  other  grounds 
you  can  object  to  the  positions  of  Swedenborg,  which  are  more  distinctly 

^enounced,  in  the  ensuing  paragraph. 

"All  evils,  and  thus  also  all  adulteries,  viewed  in  themselves,  are  together  of 
the  internal  and  external  man  ;  the  internal  intends  them,  and  the  external  does 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


247 


them;  such  therefore  as  the  internal  man  is  in  the  deeds  done  by  the  external, 
such  are  the  deeds  viewed  in  themselves :  i)ut  since  the  internal  man  willi  his 
intention  does  not  appear  before  man,  every  one  must  be  judged  in  a  Inunan 
court  from  deeds  and  words  according  to  the  law  hi  force  and  its  provisions  : 
the  interior  sense  of  the  law  is  also  to  be  regarded  l)y  the  judge.  But  to  illustrate 
the  case  by  examples  :  if  adultery  be  committed  by  a  youth,  who  does  not  Ivuow 
as  yet  that  adultery  is  a  greater  evil  than  fornication  ;  if  tlie  like  be  committed 
by  a  man  of  extreme  simplicity  ;  if  it  be  committed  by  a  person  who  is  deprived 
by  disease  of  the  full  powers  of  judgment;  or  by  a  person,  as  is  sometimes  the 
case,  who  is  delirious  by  fits,  and  is  at  the  time  in  a  state  of  actual  delirium  ;  yet 
further,  if  it  be  committed  in  a  fit  of  insane  drunkenness,  and  so  forth ;  it  is  evi- 
dent, that  in  such  cases,  the  internal  man,  or  mind,  is  not  present  in  the  external, 
scarcely  any  otherwise  than  in  an  irrational  person.  Adulteries  in  these  instances 
are  predicated  by  a  rational  man  according  to  the  above  circumstances  ;  never- 
theless the  perpetrator  is  charged  with  blame  by  the  same  rational  man  as  a 
judge,  and  is  punished  by  the  law;  but  after  death  those  adulteries  are  imputed 
according  to  the  presence,  quality,  and  faculty  of  understanding  in  the  will  of 
the  perpetrators." — C.  L.  486. 

And  here  my  limits  compel  me  to  waive  any  farther  discussion  of  the  present 
topic.  I  have  aimed  to  exhibit  fairly  and  faithfully  the  teachings  of  Swedenborg, 
even  in  their  most  offensive  features,  together  with  the  fundamental  principles 
on  which  his  positions  are  founded,  relative  to  those  laws  of  permission  which  he 
declares  applicable,  in  certain  circumstances,  to  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes.  In 
doing  this  I  beg  to  be  understood  as  assuming  nothing  more  than  the  attempt  to 
present,  in  their  just  bearings,  an  expose  of  his  real  sentiments  and  inculcations 
on  this  subject.  I  adopt  nothhig  more  of  his  doctrines  on  this,  nor  in  fatt  on  any 
other  head,  than  I  see  to  be  sustained  by  satisfactory  evidence  of  truth  as  address- 
ed to  my  Calm  and  unbiassed  reason.  In  regard  to  everything  that  Sweden- 
borg has  written,  it  must  eventually  stand  or  fall  by  its  own  intrinsic  merits. 
The  labors  of  his  adherents  may  subserve  its  interests  by  setting  his  utterances 
occasionally  in  a  clearer  light — by  confirmations  and  illustrations  drawn  from 
other  quarters — by  disabusing  the  public  mind  of  false  impressions  as  to  their 
genuine  drift — but  originating,  as,  in  our  esteem,  they  do,  from  a  source  incom- 
parably higher  than  human  reason,  human  reason  can  add  nothing  directly  to* 
the  internal  evidence,  much  less  to  the  authority,  with  which  they  address  them- 
selves to  the  seriously  pondermg  mind.  We  have  defended  them  mosi  success- 
fully when  we  have  propounded  them  most  clearly.  As  the  result,  however,  of 
a  careful,  deliberate,  and,  I  think  T  may  say,  impartial,  inquiry  into  the  purport 
and  scope  of  the  treatise  on  "  Scortatory  Love,"'  I  am  free  to  declare  myself  un- 
able to  see  the  peculiar  dangerous  tendency  charged  npon  it.  Provided  it  be 
understood  in  its  true-meant  design  and  drift,  and  received  with  all  the  accom- 
panying limitations  and  cautions,  and  especially  as  viewed  in  its  coimections 
with  the  fundamental  principles  that  distinguish  the  entire  system,  I  do  not  per- 
ceive the  i^oint  in  which  its  mischief  is  concentrated.  It  is  impossible  that  it 
should  be  a  directory  to  govern  the  practical  conduct  of  the  member  of  the  New 
Church,  for  the  reasons  already  specified,  and  upon  those  who  reject  the  doc- 
truies  and  the  claims  of  Swedenborg  it  can  of  course  have  no  influence.  The  true 
question  involved  in  regard  to  it  is,  mamly  a  question  of  fact — whether  the  Lord, 
in  the  conduct  of  his  Providence,  does  acton  the  asserted  principle  oi  permissions, 
in  view  of  the  present  state  of  mind  of  certain  classes  of  men,  and  whether  it  be 
right  and  proper  for  a  Christian  teacher  to  state  distinctly  this  fact.    If  it  be  said 


248 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS, 


that  Swedenborg  has  clone  more  than  this — that  he  has  not  only  laid  down  the 
abstract  proposition,  but  has  also  assumed  to  designate  the  specific  kinds  of 
these  permissions,  and  so  to  discriminate  the  various  grades  of  evil  in  point  of 
demerit  as  in  efTect  to  authorise  and  alloio  the  lesser,  1  can  only  say  in  reply,  tliat 
this  charge  cannot  be  made  good  against  him  on  any  other  grounds  than  those  on 
which  it  may  be  preferred  against  Moses.  A  providential  allowance  is  indeed 
asserted,  but  its  moral  conditions  are  so  expressly  defined  that  whoever  avails 
himself  of  it  must  do  it  upon  his  own  responsibility,  and  this  is  attended  with 
extreme  peril.  Yet  even  this  I  think  could  never  have  been  properly  attempted 
in  the  full  and  specific  manner  which  Swedenborg  has  done,  but  upon  the 
ground  of  a  conscious  illumination  enabling  him  to  lay  open  the  principles  on 
"which  all  actions  coming  under  this  head  are  judged  in  the  other  life.  There  is 
frequently  an  explicit,  and  all  along  through  the  treatise  a  tacit,  reference  to  those 
principles  which  are  embodied  in  the  closing  chapter  on  Judgment  and  Impu- 
tation, and  from  which  I  have  quoted  so  freely  in  the  preceding  pages.  This 
chapter  is  a  kind  of  rear-gnard  to  the  marshalled  array  of  propositions  forming 
the  body  of  the  work,  and  the  task  of  refutation  must  be  commenced  in  the  de- 
nial and  disproof  of  these  principles.  For  ourselves  we  are  assured  that  the  dis- 
closures it  contains  could  never  have  proceeded  from  one  who  had^not  been 
supernaturally  instructed  in  the  sublimest  truths  of  the  spiritual  world,  and  con- 
sequently that  they  cannot  be  viewed  apart  from  a  character  of  authority  on  this 
and  all  other  subjects  on  which  he  has  treated. 

•  With  sentiments  of  respect. 

Yours,  &c., 

GEO.  BUSH. 

LETTER  IX. 

Rev.  and  Dear  Sir  : 

The  extent  to  which  I  have  followed  out  the  train  of  your  strictures  on  the 
doctrines  of  Swedenborg,  and  the  minute  attention  which  I  have  hitherto  paid 
to  every  important  objection  urged,  have  already  carried  me  so  far  beyond  the 
limits  that  I  had  originally  proposed  to  myself,  that  I  am  compelled  to  a  some- 
what abrupt  conclusion  of  my  remarks.  There  are  several  additional  items  in 
your  Lectures  to  which  I  should  have  been  glad  to  be  able  to  reply  at  length,  as 
I  am  not  aware  of  a  single  point  of  objection  in  the  whole  volume  which  I  should 
hesitate  for  a  moment  to  meet  on  the  ground  of  the  fairest  argumentation. 
But  I  must  content  myself  mainly  with  what  1  have  already  writtea,  and  this,  I 
am  happy  to  think,  embraces  an  answer  not  only  to  all  the  important  objections 
against  our  system  urged  by  yourself,  but  also  to  all  the  more  standing  and  pop- 
ular protests  which  are  every  where  bruited^by  onr  opponents  against  the  doc- 
trines in  question.  Many  of  these  have  already  been  answered,  and  probably  in 
a  more  able  manner,  by  former  apologists,  and  in  ordinary  cases  I  should  say 
that  there  was  an  obligation  on  the  part  of  new  assailants  to  bestow  some  atten- 
tion upon  the  replies  already  given  by  New  Churchmen  to  the  very  arguments 
which  they  perpetually  bring  forward,  as  if  they  had  never  before  been  pro- 
pounded or  responded  to.  Thus  your  own  volume,  for  instance,  docs  not  seem 
to  recognize  the  fact  that  substantially  the  same  things  that  you  have  said  have 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


249 


been  said  again  and  again  by  your  predecessors  in  the  controversy,  and  have 
been  again  and  again  rephed  to.  Why  do  not  the  just  laws  of  polemics  require 
you  to  advert  to  those  replies,  and  to  show  wherein  they  fail  to  annul  the  force  of 
the  objections  urged  ?  Yet  the  whole  tenor  of  your  Lectures  is  just  what  it  might 
have  been  if  Clowes,  and  Hindmarsh,  and  Noble,  and  Bailey,  and  Smithson,  and 
Goyder,  had  never  penned  a  syllable  on  the  subject.  It  evidently  knows  nothing 
of  any  prior  assault  or  any  prior  defence;  and  the  case  is  very  much  the  same 
with  the  kindred  work  of  Dr.  Pond,  although  as  his  line  of  investigation  is  more 
original,  he  has  made  several  new  points  of  objection,  particularly  in  the  scien- 
tific department.  I  think  we  have  reason  to  complain  of  this,  as  an  act  of  injus- 
tice, as  you  would  probably  yourself  complain  if  a  Unitarian  writer  were  to  re- 
peat all  the  common  arguments  against  Orthodoxy  to  which  you  replied  some 
years  ago  in  your  letters  to  Dr.  Ware,  and  that  without  paying  the  least  attention 
to  your  published  defence.  Still  I  do  not  intimate  any  regret  that  an  occasion 
has  arisen  which  has  led  to  the  present  Reply  to  your  pamphlet.  It  has  doubt- 
less given  me  an  opportunity  of  saying  some  things  which  had  not  been  said 
before — of  putting  some  things  in  a  true  light  which  had  been  wrongly  repre- 
sented— and  above  all  of  making  Swedenborg  the  pleader  of  his  own  cause  in 
the  extended  array  of  citations  from  his  works,  which  may  find  their  way  to 
numerous  inquiring  minds  with  some  degree,  I  trust,  of  useful  effect.  They  can, 
at  any  rate,  scarcely  fail  to  correct  many  false  impressions,  and  to  beget  the  be- 
lief that  the  system  he  has  announced  is  marked  by  features  of  so  wonderful  a 
character,  that  its  claims  to  investigation  can  no  longer  be  properly  staved  off. 
This  is  the  grand  point  upon  which  his  advocates  insist.  They  do  not  challenge 
reception  forthwith,  but  they  do  demand  inquiry.  They  most  confidently  af- 
firm that  the  phenomena  connected  with  the  man,  and  the  problems  involved 
in  the  system,  imperiously  call  for  some  solution  other  than  that  which  has  hith- 
erto been  offered  by  the  deniers  of  his  high  assumptions.  The  plea  of  insanity 
has  for  the  most  part  been  condescendingly  pi;t  in,  in  his  behalf,  by  such  of  his 
opponents  as  have  seen  too  much  obvious  sincerity  and  profound  sense  in  his 
works  to  allow  the  open  charge  of  sheer  imposture.  But  nothing  more,  I  am 
persuaded,  is  necessary  than  the  simple  perusal  of  the  extracts  I  have  given  to 
compel  the  testimony  from  every  candid  mind  that "  these  are  not  the  words  of  one 
that  is  mad,  or  of  him  that  hath  a  devil."  No  madness  that  the  world  has  wit- 
nessed ever  uttered  itself  in  the  language  of  sutih  surpassing  wisdom ;  and  that  it 
is  wisdom  I  defy  any  one  to  deny  who  has  given  it  more  than  a  cursory  glance. 

Here  too  is  the  indubitable  fact  that  growing  numbers  of  intelligent  and  cool- 
judging  minds — minds  of  the  most  serious  complexion,  at  the  farthest  remove 
from  enthusiastic  tendencies,  and  trained  to  habits  of  rigid  requisition  of  evi- 
dence— are  everywhere  awaking  to  the  conviction,  that  both  the  man  and  the 
doctrine  have  been  misapprehended,  misrepresented,  and  condemned  without  a 
fair  hearing,  and  are  embracing  the  system  without  reserve.  They  are  ready  at 
once  to  declare  that  however  formidable  appears  the  prima  facie  evidence  against 
it,  and  of  which  they  are  no  less  sensible  than  others,  yet  to  their  calmest  judg- 
ment the  evidence  in  its  favor  overwhelmingly  bears  down  the  evidence  against 
it.  This,  I  maintain,  is  a  fact  that  requires  in  some  way  to  be  accounted  for. 
How  have  they  come  to  this  result  ?  It  camiot  be  said  to  be  from  a  cursory  and 
superficial  view  of  the  revelations;  for  they  will  with  one  accord  declare  that 


250 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


upon  such  a  view  of  the  system  they  would  infalUbly  have  rejected  it.  It  is  pre- 
cisely because  they  have  thoroughly  examined  and  tested  it,  thai  they  adopt  it. 
And  who,  they  ask,  that  has  not  gone  through  a  similar  process  is  entitled  to  sit 
in  judgment  on  their  decision How  is  one  competent  to  pronounce  a  fair  ver- 
dict on  the  conclusions  to  which  they  have  come,  if  he  has  not  studiously  weigh- 
ed the  reasons  that  have  determined  them?  Now  we  know  that  our  opponents 
have  not  done  this,  because  we  invariably  see  that  in  all  their  assaults  they  do 
not  treat  the  reasons,  but  wage  their  war  with  the  conclusions.  Thus,  for  instance, 
not  a  syllable  is  ever  uttered  on  the  subject  of  Swedenborg's  psychology.  Yet 
this  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  whole^cheme.  Nothing  is  said  on  the  princi- 
ple of  correspondence,  while  this  is  the  fundamental  law  of  the  spiritual  sense  of 
the  Word,  which  constitutes  a  prime  feature  of  his  disclosures.  And  so  of  nu- 
merous other  items  which  mark  the  system.  Let  us  be  encountered  on  the  pri- 
mary grounds  of  our  belief  by  those  who  really  understand  what  they  are,  and 
somewhat  of  a  true  issue  will  be  made.  But  I  must  be  allowed  to  say,  that  up- 
on this  basis  we  anticipate  few  adversaries.  It  is  not  from  those  who  have  fully 
put  themselves  in  possession  of  our  creed,  and  of  the  grounds  of  it,  that  we 
count  upon  opposition.  This  will  doubtless  ever  be  dictated,  as  it  ever  has  been, 
by  a  prejudice  that  refuses  to  invoke  knowledge  into  its  counsels.  In  regard  to 
your  own  work,  while  I  do  not  retract  the  concession  made  in  the  outset,  that  it 
does  not  deal  in  vituperation,  nor  dispense  with  argument,  I  am  still  constrained 
to  say  that  it  does  not,  in  the  main,  touch  the  true  merits  of  the  theme.  It  sup- 
poses the  error  of  Swedenborg's  system,  on  a  multitude  of  points,  simply  because  it 
differs  from  accredited  tenets.  On  these  heads  you  evidently  deem  the  system 
unworthy  of  being  reasoned  with.  On  other  points  it  fails  to  convey  the  right 
impression  on  the  score  of  facts  as  to  what  he  does  really  teach.  In  confirma- 
tion of  all  this  I  have  only  to  appeal  to  your  concluding  remarks,  in  which  you 
specify  to  your  pupils  what  they  must  do  "  if  they  would  yield  themselves  up 
to  Swedenborg  as  a  divinely  commissioned  teacher,  and  confide  in  him  as  the 
great  prophet  of  the  only  true  church." 

,  (1.)  "  You  must  exclude  from  the  word  of  God  one  sixth  part  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  half  of  the  New."  Not  a  syllable  is  to  be  excluded  from  either.  A  dis- 
tinction in  the  degree  of  inspiration  is  maintained  in  reference  to  the  several  books, 
but  the  fact  of  their  all  being  inspired  in  some  degree  is  not  denied. 

(2.)  "You  must  hold  Swedenborg  as  superior  to  all  the  inspired  teachers  who 
were  raised  up  before  him."  No  such  comparison  is  required  to  be  made.  It 
is  simply  requisite  to  recognize  such  claims  as  are  established  by  appropriate 
evidenced  Whatever  the  degree  of  his  illumination,  it  was  such,  we  hold,  as  the 
Lord  saw  fit  to  impart  to  him,  and  whether  the  measure  of  it  were  superior  or 
inferior  to  that  of  apostles  and  prophets,  is  a  question  in  itself  of  comparatively 
little  moment.  Like  them,  we  hold  that  he  spake  "  according  to  the  wisdom 
given  him."  Our  only  question  concerns  the  truth  of  what  he  has  said  and  the 
source  of  it.    He  institutes  no  such  comparisons  himself,  nor  do  we. 

(3.)  "  You  must  receive  all  his  interpretations  of  the  word  of  God  as  infallible." 
And  why  not,  if  we  admit  that  they  are  the  product  of  a  supernatural  state  into 
which  he  was  brought  by  God  himself,  and  for  the  express  purpose  of  laying 
open  the  laws  of  a  spiritual  interpretation  vastly  transcending  that  of  the  letter 
The  evidence  of  the  truth  of  his  interpretations  depends  upoh  the  evidence  of 
the  reality  of  his  illumination,  and  when  it  can  be  shown  that  the  ends  of  such 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


251 


an  illumination  could  be  consistent  with  a  fallacious  mode  of  unfolding  the  in- 
terior purport  of  the  Scriptures,  we  shall  feel  at  liberty  to  doubt  whether  it  be  in- 
deed infallible.  Meantime  we  shall  continue  to  regard  his  interpretations  as  in- 
fallible, till  some  stronger  reason  is  given  for  believing  the  reverse. 

(4.)  "  You  must  follow  him  in  regard  to  the  doctrines  of  religion."  These 
you  go  on  to  specify  as  follows ; — "  As  he  rejects  the  common  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  denying  the  distinct  personality  not  only  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  but  also  of 
the  Father  and  the  Son;  so  must  you.  As  he  rejects  that  centre-doctrine  of  the 
Gospel,  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  or  the  vicarious  sufferings  of  Christ  as  a 
propitiation  for  sin ;  so  must  you.  As  he  rejects  the  doctrine  of  Justification  by 
Faith,  that  great  doctrine  of  the  New  Testament  and  of  the  churches  of  the  Re- 
formation ;  you  must  do  the  same.  As  he  rejects  the  evidence  of  miracles  as 
what  carries  comiiulsion  with  it  and  takes  away  man's  free  will ;  so  must  you. 
As  he  rejects  the  worship  of  an  invisible  God,  a  pure  and  perfect  Spirit,  and  main- 
tains that  God  is  very  man,  and  is  worshiped  as  a  man  by  all  in  heaven,  and  by 
all  the  men  of  the  church ;  you  must  do  likewise.  As  he  sternly  rejects  the 
common  doctrine  of  Native  Depravity,  and  the  doctrine  of  Divine  Sovereignty 
and  Predestination  ;  so  must  you.  As  he  holds  a  doctrine  very  like  the  Popish 
doctrine  of  Purgatory;  so  must  you.  That  the  present  life  is  the  only  time  of 
probation,  you  can  no  longer  believe.  And  you  can  no  longer  say  to  men,  with 
the  awakening  emphasis  which  the  language  usually  carries  with  it.  Behold  now 
is  the  accepted  time.'  Behold  now  is  the  day  of  salvation  !  Repent,  and  prepare  to  meet 
your  God." — p.  163.  Now  in  regard  to  every  one  of  these  points  I  would  respect- 
fully submit  whether  I  have  not  shown  in  my  preceding  pages  that  your  allega- 
tions are  calculated  to  convey  an  entirely  erroneous  impression  of  the  truth. 
He  does  indeed  reject  the  "  common  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  denying  the  distinct 
personality,  not  only  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  but  also  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,"  and 
I  trust  to  have  shown  that  he  had  very  good  reasons  for  so  doing,  and  that  not 
Swedenborg,  but  yourself  and  the  soi-disant  orthodox  churches,  talte  unscriptural 
ground  on  this  head-  But  as  to  all  the  other  items,  I  am  unable  to  see  wherein 
I  have  failed  in  showing  either  that  you  have  not  represented  the  fact  of  his 
teachings  correctly,  or  that  where  you  have,  the  intrinsic  truth  is  on  the  side  of 
Swedenborg,  and  not  on  that  of  his  gainsay ers.  I  leave  it,  however,  to  the 
judgment  of  the  reader. 

(5.)  "  You  must  follow  your  teacher  also  in  the  denial  of  the  Resurrection  of 
the  body."  Certainly  we  follow  him  in  the  denial  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
material  body,  because  we  follow  him  in  the  assertion  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
spiritual  body,  other  than  which  we  know  nothing  of  any  body  at  all  after  death. 
If  you  do,  and  can  enlighten  us  by  the  light  either  of  Scripture  or  reason  on  the 
subject  we  shall  "  lend  an  attent  ear"  to  all  such  elucidations.  As  at  present 
advised,  we  find  in  the  sacred  writers  no  announcement  of  any  body  to  be  rais- 
ed but  a  spiritual  one,  and  as  all  our  rational  inductions  agree  with  Swedenborg 
in  assuring  us  that  such  a  body  is  actually  involved  and  enwrapped  in  the  ma- 
terial body,  and  as  the  separation  of  these  bodies  takes  place  at  death,  we  infer 
that  the  only  resurrection  ever  to  occur  will  occur  at  death.  We  are  not  dis- 
turbed by  any  intimation  that  this  view  is  contrary  to  the  plain  language  of 
Scripture,  for  our  concern  is  no  less  with  what  Scripture  means  than  with  what 
it  says. 

(6.)  "  You  must  adopt  his  code  of  morals,  which,  though  aboimduig  in  sound 


252 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


principles  respecting  the  love  of  our  neighbor,  and  the  duties  of  morality  flow- 
ing from  it,  and  in  general  respecting  the  domestic  relations,  does,  after  all, 
allow  unmarried  men,  in  cases  which  often  occur,  to  keep  a  mistress,  and  ac- 
commodates married  men  in  the  same  way,  when  they  have  'just  and  consci- 
entious reasons,'  as  he  thinks  they  frequently  have."  My  reply  to  this  must  be 
fresh  upon  the  reader's  mind.  He  has  by  this  time  found  himself  able  to  judge 
how  far  Swedenborg  grants  allowance  and  accommodation  either  to  married  or  un- 
married men.  But  you  add,  "  I  do  not  say  that  the  followers  of  Swedenborg 
must,  in  their  own  practice,  conform  to  what  is  corrupt  and  abominable  in  his 
moral  code  ;  but  I  say  they  must  admit  it  as  a  part  of  Swedenborg's  theory,  and 
must  hold  that  it  is  allowable  to  conform  to  it."  Allowable  to  whom,  and  under 
what  conditions  This  is  the  core  of  the  whole  matter,  and  on  this  point  you 
have,  whether  wisely  or  otherwisely,  suppressed  all  qualifications,  and  thus  present- 
ed a  glaringly  distorted  view  of  the  whole  scope  of  his  statements.  But  the 
grounds  of  a  truer  judgment  are  now  before  the  reader,  and  it  may  be  presumed 
that  he  will  give  them  their  due  weight. 

You  sum  up  the  whole  in  the  following  words  : — 

"  Such  as  I  have  mentioned,  are  the  doctrines  of  Scripture  and  of  the  Christian 
church,  which  you  must  reject,  and  such  the  moral  and  religious  principles 
which  you  must  embrace,  if  you  become  consistent  followers  of  Swedenborg. 
In  some  respects  your  principles  must  nearly  agree  with  these  of  Sabellians ;  in 
some  respects,  with  those  of  Unitarians ;  in  some  respects,  with  those  of  liber- 
tines ;  and  in  some  respects,  you  must  adopt  principles,  which  neither  Prophets 
nor  Apostles,  neither  men  nor  angels,  ever  before  taught  in  our  world,  but  which 
were  revealed  to  the  great  Teacher  of  the  New  Jerusalem  church." — p.  164. 

Our  affinities,  according  to  this,  are  quite  multifarious,  and  so  far  as  the  ele- 
ments of  goodness  and  truth  exist  in  any  system  of  religion,  we  should  probably 
admit  a  harmonizing  tendency  even  to  a  greater  extent  than  you  have  indicat- 
ed, with  the  exception,  however  of  the  sect  of  "  libertines,"  with  which  we  are 
unable  to  recognize  the  points  of  contact.  Indeed  we  see  for  ourselves  rather 
more  relationship  in  that  direction  in  Liuher's  grand  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  alone,  at  least  as  held  by  himself.  "  Now  thou  seesthow  rich  is  the  Chris- 
tian or  the  baptized  man;  for  thongh  he  will  he  cannot  lose  his  salvation,  how- 
ever great  his  sins  may  be,  unless  he  refuses  to  believe.  No  sin  can  damn  him,  but 
unbelief  alone." — (De  Captiv.  Bab.  Tom.  II.  fol.  264.)  "  Sin  lustjly,  but  be  yet 
more  lusty  in  faith,  and  rejoice  in  Christ.  From  him  no  sin  will  sever  us,  though 
a  million  times  a  daif  we  should  fornicate  or  commit  murder."  {Epist.  ad  Aurifab.  Tom. 
I.  p.  545.)  "  If  in  faith  an  adultery  could  be  committed,  it  would  be  no  sin." 
{Disput.  Tom.  I.  p.  523).  This  has  at  least,  I  think,  as  much  of  a  squinting  towards 
libertinism  as  anything  in  Swedenborg.  I  am  aware  it  is  but  hypothetically 
put,  yet  it  is  clear  that  the  hypothesis  is  very  wild,  very  useless,  in  superlatively 
bad  taste,  and  not  altogether  free  from  bad  tendency.  Melancthon  falls  but  liule 
short  of  this.  "  Whatever  thou  mayest  do,  whether  thou  eatest,  drinkest,  work- 
est,  teachest,  I  may  add,  shouldst  thou  even  sin  therewith,  look  not  to  thy 
works ;  weigh  the  promise  of  God."  This  is  like  supposing  the  co-existence  of 
day  and  night,  which  were  hardly  to  be  expected  from  a  wise  man. 

But  I  will  not  bandy  imputations  of  this  kind.  We  are  neither  of  us  sworn  to 
the  maintenance  of  any  tenets  but  those  that  we  see,  by  the  light  of  right  reason, 
to  be  true.    In  the  brief  space  that  remains  to  me  I  would  prefer  to  appeal,  in 


s 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


253 


behalf  of  the  cause  for  which  I  plead,  to  those  sentiments  of  dcvont  reverence 
for  whatever  "  God  the  Lord  hath  spoken,"  which  I  am  sure  pervade  your  bosom. 
I  cannot  do  yon  the  injustice  to  doubt,  that  you  would  not  knowingly  turn  a 
deaf  ear  to  any  message  that  you  had  the  least  reason  to  believe  was  really  from 
God  and  designed  to  make  known  his  mind  to  his  creatures.  You  would  not 
need  to  be  previously  assured  that  every  such  communication  was  dictated  by 
infinite  benevolence,  was  intended  for  our  highest  good,  and,  coming  from 
the  Most  High  himself,  was  pre-eminently  worthy  of  all  acceptation.  I  can 
easily  picture  to  myself  the  retrospective  regret  of  a  devoutly  ingenuous  and 
deeply  pious  mind  in  case  it  should  ultimately  receive  the  conviction  that  it  had 
unwittingly  put  away  from  itself  a.  bona  fide  revelation  from  the  Lord  of  hosts, 
and  that  too  under  the  influence  of  a  general  state  of  mind  which  would  have 
leaped  to  the  recognition  of  the  truth,  had  it  but  rationally  perceived  it.  Now 
in  the  present  case  I  think  you  must  admit  that  there  is  at  least  a  possibility  that 
Emanuel  Swedei>borg  may  have  been  a  veritable  messenger  from  God  to  man. 
You  cannot,  I  am  persuaded,  put  your  finger  upon  any  express  declaration  of 
the  Word  which  absolutely  forbids  the  expectancy  of  any  farther  disclosures  by 
the  Lord  himself  of  the  spiritual  world,  the  scene  of  our  immortal  existence. 
Such  disclosures  may  then  be  made,  and  if  so,  what  more  probable  than  that  they 
should  be  made  through  the  agency  of  some  individual  raised  up  and  remarka- 
bly endowed  as  a  selected  medium  for  the  purpose.  The  question  then  occurs 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  evidence  by  which  such  a  claim  is  to  be  substantiated.  I 
think  I  have  proposed  some  valid  reasons  for  doubting  whether  the  evidence  of 
miracles  would  be  fairly  to  be  expected  at  this  day,  in  proof  of  a  divine  mis- 
sion. It  would  be  rather  an  evidence  involved  in  the  intrinsic  character  of  the 
doctrines  announced  ;  and  one  of  its  distinguishing  features  would  be  apt  to  be 
the  development  of  the  relation  between  the  inner  constituent  principles  of  our 
nature  and  the  great  truths  of  revelation — a  development  unfolding  the  precise 
manner  in  which  our  future  destiny  is  controlled  by  our  present  character.  But 
this  could  scarcely  be  done  without  at  the  same  time  disclosing  the  fundamental 
relation  between  all  natural  and  spiritual  truth,  between  the  two  worlds  of 
matter  and  of  mind,  and  this  is  virtually  showing  the  indissoluble  connection 
between  science  and  revelation.  It  is  clothing  theology  with  the  character  of  a 
divine  philosophy.  And  this  we  believe  has  been  accomplished  in  the  sublime 
apocalypse  of  which  Svvedenborg  has  been  made  the  instrument.  The  great 
problems  of  Creation,  of  Life,  of  Affection,  of  Thought,  of  Free  Will,  of  Redemp- 
tion, of  Regeneration,  of  Providence,  have  been  solved,  if  he  has  uttered  truth. 
The  enucleation  of  the  profounder  mysteries  of  our  being  in  all  its  ramified  rela- 
tions is  no  longer  banned  by  the  inscription,  hitherto  read  over  the  entrance  of 
the  Temple  of  Truth,  "Non  Licet,"  but  is  ceded  by  the  cheering  title,  "Nunc 
Licet."*  The  door  is  open,  and  he  that  is  reverently  disposed  to  worship  and 
learn  within  the  sanctuary  is  freely  permitted  to  enter. 

This  then  is  the  leading  character  of  the  evidence  which  Swedenborg  affords 


*  Swedenborg  in  one  of  his  visions  in  the  spiritual  world,  beheld  a  splendid  temple 
illuminated  by  the  light  flowing  from  the  interior  sense  of  the  Word,  after  describing 
which  he  says ; — "  When  I  came  up  nearer,  I  saw  these  words  written  on  the  gate, 
Nunc  Licet,  now  it  is  lawful ;  which  signified  that  now  it  is  lawful  to  enter  intellectually 
into  the  $ec.ets  of  faith."— T.  C.  R.  508. 


254 


REPLY  TO  DR.  WOODS. 


of  the  truth  of  his  mission.  To  a  calm  reflection  I  think  it  must  appear  as  the 
most  appropriate  and  convincing  species  of  evidence  that  can  be  adduced.  At 
the  same  time  I  am  fully  aware  of  the  obstacles  with  which  the  reception  of 
such  a  claim  as  his  must  inevitably  have  to  contend.  It  is  adverse  to  all  our 
settled  preconceptions — it  makes  a  kind  of  havoc  of  our  most  cherished  notions 
on  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  the  doctrines  of  religion,  and  the  state  after 
death— it  strikes  us,  at  first  blush,  as  an  actual  superseding  of  all  prior  Imowl- 
edges  on  the  subjects  of  the  Christian  revelation — in  a  word,  a  sort  of  moral  par- 
alysis seems  to  fall  upon  the  entire  body  of  our  faith  on  the  supposition  that 
Swedenborg  is  true.  Still  he  may  be  true,  and  his  tmth  may  be  of  the  most 
transcendant  moment  to  the  world.  Our  own  conviction  on  this  head  arises  in 
great  measure  from  the  utter  impossibility  we  find  of  accounting  for  the  facts  of 
Swedenborg's  case  on  any  other  theory  than  that  of  the  reabty  of  his  supernatural 
insight,  and  of  conceiving  the  truth  on  the  various  subjects  he  has  treated  to  be 
otherwise  than  lie  affirms.  And  we  feel  strongly,  in  reference  to  any  attempt  to 
refute  our  positions,  the  force  of  ilr.  Mill's  remaxk  in  his  Logic  (p.  551),  that  "  it 
is  a  rule  both  of  justice  and  good  sense,  to  grapple  not  with  the  absurdest,  but 
with  the  most  reasonable  form  of  a  wrong  opinion."  The  more  deeply  we  have 
investigated,  the  more  firm  the  assurance  that  prompts  the  exclamation; — 
*'  Plato,  thou  reasonest  well ;  it  must  be  so."  To  our  faith  rendered  under  such 
circumstances  we  may  apply  the  remark  made  by  Swedenborg  himself  in  one 
of  his  scientific  works,  that  "  if  any  one  tells  me  the  same  thmg  that  I  have  myself 
arrived  at,  I  am  bound  to  believe  him  on  the  simple  ground  that  I  believe  my- 
self."—(PA(7oj.  of  the  Infinite,  p  64.) 

With  men  of  advanced  years  and  confirmed  opinions  we  can  be  but  little  san- 
guine in  our  anticipations  of  so  great  a  change  of  views  as  is  necessarily  sup- 
posed in  the  adoption  of  this  remarkable  system.  But  I  have  been  much  im- 
pressed by  the  following  resolution  of  President  Edwards,  a  name  that  I  doubt 
not  carries  more  than  ordinary  authority  with  you  as  that  of  a  profoundly  en- 
lightened and  em'uiently  holy  man ; — "  If  I  ever  live  to  years,  I  will  be  impartial 
to  hear  reasons  of  all  pretended  discoveries,  and  receive  them,  if  rational,  how 
long  soever  I  may  have  been  used  to  another  way  of  thinking."  If  this  appears 
to  you  a  reasonable  principle  of  action,  I  cannot  entirely  forego  the  hope  that 
you  may  yet  review  the  tenor  of  your  objections,  and  putting  them  in  contrast 
with  the  real  character  of  the  doctrines  against  which  they  are  urged,  may  event- 
iially  reach  the  conclusion,  that  if  they  are  not  true,  still  they  have  so  much  of 
the  semblance  of  truth,  and  are  built  upon  principles  so  profoundly  rational  and 
philosophical,  that  no  man  can  be  justi/ied  in  lightly  estimating  or  hastily 
dismissing  them. 

In  drawing  my  lengthened  reply  to  a  close,  I  have  only  to  request  that  if  I 
have  in  anything  done  injustice  to  your  arguments,  or  spoken  in  a  manner  in- 
consistent with  the  spirit  of  a  religion  whose  genius  and  motto  is  Charity,  or 
unsuited  to  the  respect  and  reverence  which  I  have  long  sincerely  cherished 
towards  you,  you  will  put  it  to  tlie  account  of  anything  rather  than  an  intention 
to  disregard  the  least  of  the  requisites  to  a  truly  Christian  style  of  religious  con- 
troversy. With  the  assurance  of  my  high  personal  regard  and  my  best  wishes 
for  your  welfare  I  remain, 

Dear  Sir,  Yours,  &c. 

GEO.  BUSH. 


APPENDIX. 


The  case  of  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  alluded  to  on  a  preceding  page;  exhibits 
so  curious  a  chapter  in  ecclesiastical  history,  and  afTords  so  striking  an  instance 
of  the  practical  adoption  of  the  principles  asserted  by  Swedenborg,  that  we  have 
been  induced  to  present  the  affair  somewhat  more  in  detail  as  given  in  "  Bossuet's 
Variations,"  vol.  ].  p.  231-251.  Ashe  adduces  original  documents,  no  charge 
of  partizan  injustice  can  be  brought  against  the  statement.  The  Reply  of  the 
Reformers  to  the  application  of  the  Landgrave  considers  his  reasons  at  length, 
and  after  dwelling  upon  the  original  design  of  the  marriage  institute  goes  on  to 
observe : 

"  Lamech  was  the  first  that  married  many  wives,  and  the  Scripture  witnesses  that 
this  custom  was  introduced  contrary  to  the  first  institution.  It  nevertheless  passed  into 
custom  among  infidel  nations;  and  we  even  find  afterwards,  that  Abraham  and  his 
posterity  had  many  wives..  It  is  also  certain  from  Deuteronomy,  that  the  law  of  Moses 
permitted  it  afterwards,  and  that  God  made  an  allowance  for  frail  nature.  Since  it  is 
then  suitable  to  the  creation  of  men,  and  to  the  first  establishment  of  their  society,  that 
each  one  be  content  with  one  wife,  it  thence  follows  that  the  law  enjoining  it  is  praise- 
worthy  ;  that  it  ought  to  be  received  in  the  Church  ;  and  no  law  contrary  thereto  be  in- 
troduced into  it,  because  Jesus  Christ  has  repeated  in  the  nineteenth  chapter  of  St.  Mat- 
thew that  text  of  Genesis,  *  There  shall  be  two  in  one  fiesh :'  and  brings  to  man's  re- 
membrance what  marriage  ought  to  have  been  before  it  degenerated  from  its  purity. 
In  certain  caaet  however,  there  is  room  for  dispensation.  For  example,  if  a  married 
man,  detained  captive  in  a  distant  country,  should  there  take  a  second  wife,  in  order  to 
preserve  or  recover  his  health;  or  if  his  own  become  leprous,  we  see  not  how  we 
could  condemn,  in  these  cases,  such  a  man  as,  by  the  advice  of  his  Pastor,  should  take 
another  wife,  provided  it  were  not  with  a  design  of  introducing  a  new  law,  but  with  an 
eye  only  to  his  own  particular  necessities. 

"  As  to  what  your  Highness  says,  that  it  is  not  possible  for  you  to  abstain  from  this 
impure  life,  we  wish  you  were  in  a  better  state  before  God,  that  you  lived  with  a  secure 
conscience,  and  labored  for  the  salvation  of  your  own  soul,  and  the  welfare  of  your 
subjects.  But  after  all,  if  your  Highness  is  fully  resolved  to  marry  a  second  wife,  we 
judge  it  ought  to  be  done  secretly,  as  we  have  said  with  respect  to  the  dispensation  de- 
manded on  the  same  account,  that  is,  that  none  but  the  person  you  shall  wed,  and 
a  few  trusty  persons,  know  of  the  matter,  and  they,  too,  obliged  to  secrecy  under  the 
seal  of  confession.  Hence  no  contradiction  nor  scandal  of  moment  is  to  be  appre- 
hended ;  for  it  is  no  extraordinary  thing  for  Princes  to  keep  concubines  ;  and  though 
the  vulgar  should  be  scandalized  thereat,  the  more  intelligent  would  doubt  of  the  truth, 
and  prudent  persons  would  approve  of  this  moderate  kind  of  life,  as  preferable  to  adul- 
tery, and  other  brutal  actions.  There  is  no  need  of  being  much  concerned  for  what 
men  will  say,  provided  all  goes  right  with  conscience.    So  far  do  we  approve  it,  and  in 


256 


APPENDIX. 


\^those  circumstances  only  by  tis  specified  ;  for  the  Gospel  hath  neither  recalled  nor  forbid 
what  was  permitted  in  the  law  of  Moses  with  respect  to  marriage. )(.  Jesus  Christ  hns 

;not  changed  the  external  economy,  but  added  justice  only,  and  life  everlasting,  for 
reward.  He  teaches  the  true  way  of  obeying  God,  and  endeavors  to  repair  the  cor- 
ruption of  nature.  Your  Highness  hath  therefore,  in  this  writing,  not  only  the  appro- 
bation of  us  all,  in  case  of  necessity,  concerning  what  you  desire,  but  also  the  reflections 
we  have  made  thereupon  ;  we  beseech  you  to  weigh  them,  as  becoming  a  virtuous, 
wise,  and  Christian  Prince.  We  also  beg  of  God  to  direct  all  for  his  glory  and  your 
Highness's  salvation." 

We  have  then  a  copy  of  the  marriage  contract  duly  attested  and  *uthenticat- 

ed,  of  which  the  following  is  the  substance.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  measure 
appears  to  have  been  regarded  by  all  the  parties  concerned  as  quite  essential  to 
the  temporal  and  eternal  well-beuig  of  his  Highness. 

"  Whereas  the  eye  of  God  searches  all  things,  and  but  little  escapes  the  knowledge 
of  men,  his  Highness  declares  that  his  will  is  to  wed  the  said  Lady  Margaret  de  Saal, 
although  the  Princess  his  wife  be  still  living,  and  that  this  action  may  not  be  imputed 
to  inconstancy  or  curiosity,  and  to  avoid  scandal  and  maintain  the  honor  of  the  said 
Lady,  and  the  reputation  of  her  kindred,  his  Highness  makes  oath  here  before  God,  and 
upon  his  soul  and  conscience,  that  he  takes  her  to  wife  through  no  levity,  nor  curiosity, 
nor  from  any  contempt  of  law  or  superiors ;  but  that  he  is  obliged  to  it  by  such  import- 
ant, such  inevitable  necessities  of  body  and  conscience,  that  it  is  impossible  for  him  to 
save  either  body  or  soul,  without  adding  another  wife  to  his  first.  All  which  his  High- 
ness hath  laid  before  many  learned,  devout,  prudent,  and  Christian  preachers,  and  con- 
sulted them  upon  it.  And  these  great  men,  after  examining  the  motives  represented  to 
them,  have  advised  his  Highness  to  put  his  soul  and  conscience  at  ease  by  this  double 
marriage.  And  the  same  cause  and  the  same  necessity  have  obliged  the  most  serene 
Princess,  Christina  Duchess  of  Saxony,  his  Highness's  first  lawful  wife,  out  of  her  great 
prudence  and  sincere  devotion,  for  which  she  is  so  much  to  be  commended,  freely  to 
consent  and  admit  of  a  partner,  to  the  end,  that  the  soul  and  body  of  her  most  dear 
spouse  may  run  no  further  risk,  and  the  glory  of  God  may  be  increased,  as  the  deed 
written  with  this  Princess's  own  hand  sufficiently  testifies.  And  lest  occasion  of  scan- 
dal be  taken  from  its  not  being  the  custom  to  have  two  wives,  although  this  be  Christian 
and  lawful  in  the  present  case,  his  Highness  will  not  solemnize  these  nuptials  in  the 
ordinary  way,  that  is,  publicly  before  many  people,  and  with  the  wonted  ceremonies, 
with  the  said  Margaret  de  Saal ;  but  both  the  one  and  the  other  will  join  themselves  in 
wedlock,  privately  and  without  noise,  in  presence  only  of  the  witnesses  underwritten." 

We  forbear  all  comment  upon  this  unique  manifesto.  It  is  quite  obvious  that 
the  exculpation  of  Luther  is  the  justification  of  Swedenborg.  The  German 
Reformer  and  the  Swedish  Innovator  are  here  clearly  in-thc  same  ship  and  must, 
in  the  world's  sentence,  reach  the  haven  or  go  to  the  bottom  together.  We  shall 
anxiously  await  the  effect  of  the  wind  and  tide  of  public  judgment. 


u  /  / 

<f 


I 


REVIEW 


OF  THE  REV.  DR.  POND 


ON  THE  FACTS  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


OF  SWEDENBOKG.* 


BY  WM.  B.  HAYDEN. 


"  It  is  trifling  to  receive  all  but  something  which  is  as  integral  as  any  other  portion  ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  solemn  thing  to  receive  any  part,  as  before  you  know 
where  you  are,  yon  may  be  carried  on  by  a  stern  logical  necessity  to  accept  the  whole." 

H.  Nf.wman' s  Essay. 

We  very  much  doubt  whether  literary  history  for  several  centuries  has  ex- 
hibited a  parallel  to  the  discussion  now  going  on  in  this  country,  between  the 
assailants  and  the  advocates  of  the  system  of  Swedenborg.  It  is  indeed,  no 
very  uncommon  circumstance  for  controversialsts  to  misrepresent,  in  some  de- 
gree, the  opinions  or  doctrines  of  opponents,  or  to  ascribe  to  them  logical  re- 
sults, which  the  holders  do  not  admit  to  be  legitimately  deducible  from  them. 
Neither  is  it  uncommon  for  individual  reviewers  to  misunderstand  the  language  of 
an  author,  and  thus  attribute  to  him  doctrines  which  he  does  not  hold.  But  we 
believe  the  cases  of  very  rare  occurrence,  in  which  not  merely  some  unimport- 
ant details,  but  the  entire  scope  of  a  vast  sy.stem,  has  not  only  been  misunder- 
stood, but  totally  uncompreheuded,  by  not  one  reviewer  alone,  but  by  all  its 
reviewers,  great  and  small ;  from  the  learned  professors  who  have  opposed  it  in 
volumes,  to  the  sophomores  who  have  attacked  it  in  theses,  and  from  the 
clerical  critics  who  have  denounced  it  in  pulpits  to  the  minor  sapiences  that 
have  berated  it  in  newspapers.  Such,  however,  we  are  compelled  to  say  is  the 
state  of  the  case  in  relation  to  the  system  in  question,  and  diose  who  have  at- 
tempted to  refute  it.  The  German  metaphysicians  who  have  flourished  since 
the  days  of  Kant,  have  indeed  labored  under  the  great  impediment  of  not  being 
always  understood.  But  their  reviewers  have  usually  confessed  their  inability 
to  comprehend  them,  and  have  therefore  wisely  refrained  from  claiming  to  have 
refuted  them.  Had  the  reviewers  of  Swedenborg,  in  this  country,  pursued  a 
similar  course,  we  should  have  entertained  more  respect  for  the  tactics  they  have 
displayed  in  their  warfare. 

"  Swedenborgianism  Reviewed.    By  Enoch  Pond,  D.  D.,  Professor  in  the  Theologi- 
cal Seminary,  Bangor,  Me."    Portland,  1846.    12nio.  pp.  296. 
1 


2 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


Among  the  many  circumstances  which  at  this  day  her  Divine  Master  is  over- 
ruhng  for  the  advancement  of  the  New  Church,  we  count  the  pubhcation  of  the 
work  whose  title  we  have  placed  at  the  head  of  this  article.  It  contains,  in  a 
condensed  form,  all  the  objections  we  remember  ever  to  have  seen  urged  against 
the  claims  of  Swedenborg  to  Divine  illumination ;  with  many  others  never  be- 
fore presented  ;  and  we  may  add  that  many  of  them  are  such  as  very  few  lite- 
rary men  would  care  to  stake  their  reputation  vipon.  At  first  view  this  book 
appears  to  have  been  written  throughout  under  the  influence  of  an  assumed 
hypothesis ;  and  we  are  sorry  to  say  that  a  reperusal  serves  only  to  strengthen 
the  impression.  Dr.  Pond  has  conceived  the  idea  that  Swedenborg  was  insane,' 
and  on  this  assumed  basis  he  proceeds  to  account  for  and  to  explain  the  various 
phenomena  connected  with  his  case.  This  assumption^  has  received  many  and 
patient  replies.  But  for  ourselves,  we  have  not,  in  conversation  or  otherwise, 
when  it  has  been  urged,  taken  that  pains  to  refute  it,  which  those  who  make 
the  charge  seem  to  think  it  reqxiires.  The  time  was,  no  doubt,  in  the  earlier 
discussions,  when  it  was  worth  while  to  remove  this  stumbling  block  from  the 
path  of  inquirers,  that  the  system  might  be  fairly  presented  to  the  world.  But 
that  stage  of  the  controversy  we  conceive  to  be  well  nigh  passed.  These  writ- 
ings have  now  been  before  the  world  nearly  one  hundred  years,  and  the  circle 
of  their  receivers  has  been  gradually  expanding  with  the  increase  of  know- 
ledge: a  process  directly  the  reverse  of  that  which  it  must  be  supposed  would 
have  taken  place  had  they  been  nothing  more  than  the  ravings  of  a  maniac. 
Those  who  regard  Swedenborg's  system  from  this  "  insane"  point  of  view,  in 
our  opinion,  greatly  overrate  the  advantage  they  fancy  they  will  have  gained 
when  they  shall  have  proven  the  charge  they  prefer.  For,  granting  him  insane, 
they  are  as  far  as  ever  from  refuting  his  philosophy,  or  invalidating  the  claims 
his  doctrines  have  to  our  reception.  The  shutting  up  of  Swedenborg  in  a  mad 
house  would  no  more  impede  the  march  of  the  New  Dispensation,  than  did  the 
beheading  of  John  the  Baptist  in  prison  retard  the  development  of  the  Apos- 
tolic. 

Dr.  Liebig  of  Germany  observed  in  certain  cases  that  a  substance  which 
would  not  of  itself  yield  to  a  parti'cular  chemical  attraction,  will  nevertheless  do 
•so  if  placed  in  contact  with  some  other  body  which  is  in  the  act  of  yielding  to 
the  same  force.  "Nitric  acid,  for  example,  does  not  dissoh'e  pure  platinum, 
tibut  the  same  acid  easily  dissolves  silver.  Now  if  an  alloy  of  silver  and  platinum 
be  treated  with  nitric  acid,  the  acid  does  not,  as  might  naturally  be  expected, 
separate  the  two  metals :  it  dissolves  both  the  platinum  as  well  as  the  silver 
which  becomes  oxidized,  and  in  that  state  combines  with  the  undecomposed 
portion  of  the  acid"  From  this,  and  a  few  similar  cases,  Dr.  Liebig  rose  to  a 
""comprehensive  generalization,  and  has  recently  propounded  a  theory,  which  may 
be  called  the  theory  of  the  contagions  injluence  of  chemical  action.  He  supposes  a 
law  to  hold  throughout  nature,  which  he  expresses  in  the  following  words : 
"  A  body  in  the  act  of  combination  or  decomposition  enables  another  body,  with 
which  it  may  be  in  contact,  to  enter  into  the  same  state."  This  theory,  how- 
ever simple  a  concise  statement  of  it  may  appear,  becomes  of  immense  im- 
portance in  its  application.  It  may  be  considered  extremely  visionary  by  many 
that  anything  so  much  resembling  sympathy  should  pervade  inanimate  nature  : 
some  matter-of-fact  persons  may  go  so  far  as  to  declare  the  Doctor  "  insane  on 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


3 


this  point."  But  insane  or  not,  the  theory  is  promalgatecl ;  and  immeJiately  the 
laboratories  of  the  whole  continent  are  busy  with  their  experiments  in  order  to 
verify,  or  to  explode  it.  Had  these  chemists  been  acquainted  with  the  later 
methods  of  philosophical  inquiry  they  might  have  saved  themselves  all  this 
trouble,  and  have  given  the  whole  theory  a  quietus  at  its  birth  by  simply  de- 
claring its  author  insane.  But  not  being  aware  that  the  truth  of  a  position  in 
philosophy  depended  on  the  mental  state  of  its  first  propounder,  they  pursued 
the  Method  of  Verification  and  have  very  generally  admitted  the  truth  of  the 
theory.  Thus  we  conceive  the  reviewers  of  Swedenborg  would  be  pursuing  a 
more  logical,  and  at  the  same  time  a  more  manly  course,  if,  laying  aside  all  at- 
tempts at  creating  an  antecedent  odium  against  his  sy.stem,  by  raising  a  subsi- 
diary issue,  they  would  grapple  directly  with  the  great  doctrines  he  has  enunci- 
ated. We  wish  to  record  it  then  as  our  opinion,  that  New  Churchmen  would 
be  gainers  if,  in  all  future  discussions  with  unbelievers,  they  should  totally 
ignore  the  charge  of  insanity.  Eminent  thinkers  abroad  and  at  home  who  are 
not  receivers  of  his  doctrines,  now  regard  Swedenborg  in  a  very  different  light ; 
and  we  cannot  refrain  from  adding  that  the  charge  argues  a  very  deficient 
knowledge  of  the  subject  in  those  who  make  it.  The  additional  arguments 
which  our  opponents  evidently  feel  them.selves  called  upon  to  use,  is  a  tacit 
acknowledgement  that  the  hyjDOthesis  fails  to  account  satisfactorily  for  all  the 
phenomena,  even  to  their  own  minds. 

It  is  not  our  intention,  as  our  title  indicates,  to  enter  that  broad  field  in  which 
lie  all  chose  great  theological  doctrines  that  are  in  dispute  between  the  Old  and 
the  New  Church.  We  are  in  quest  of  philosophy;  and  though  we  often  see 
the  word,  and  sometimes  hear  the  sound,  in  Dr.  Pond's  book,  we  have  been 
able,  after  the  most  rigid  analysis,  to  detect  but  a  very  small  quantity  of  the 
genuine  article. 

He  commences  his  review  of  the  philosophy  of  Swedenborg  in  the  following 
language.  "  He  did  profess  to  be  a  philosopher,  and  his  teachings,  interpreta- 
tions, and  revelations  are  so  intermingled  with,  and  based  upon,  his  philosophy, 
that  they  cannot  be  separated  from  it.  Such  is  the  acknowledgement,  and,  I 
had  almost  said,  the  boast  of  his  followers.  '  The  profoundest  philosophy,'  says 
Mr.  Bush, '  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  his  revelations.'  'Whatever  may  have  been 
thie  nature  of  Swedenborg's  distempered  fancy,'  says  Mr.  Clissold,  '  we  are  not  ^ 
to  look  for  this  distemper  primarily  iii^  his  visions,  but  in  tjie  philosophy  which 
led  to  them.  Here  is  the  origin  of  the  evil,  if  it  be  one.  The  fanaticism,  if  it  be 
such,  is  not  primarily  in  the  visions,  but  in  the  philosophy ;  and  our  opponents 
must  take  up  the  question  on  this  ground,  if  they  will  take  it  up  on  the  only 
ground  on  which  it  can  be  decided.'  This,  then,  is  the  ground  on  which  I  pro- 
pose now  to  consider  the  question."  He  then  immediately  proceeds  to  array 
certain  statements  of  Swedenborg  which  he  considers  to  be  in  contradiction  to 
the  known  facts  of  physical  science:  and  thereby  leaves  us  to  the  inevitable  in- 
ference that  he  has  read  the  works  of  Swedenborg  and  his  defenders  with  so 
much  haste  or  inattention,  as  to  have  actually  supposed  that  Messrs.  Bush  and 
Clissold  referred  to  such  facts  as  the  distance  of  Saturn  from  the  sun,  or  the  ex- 
tent of  the  sun's  atmosphere,  instead  of  the  psychological  phenomena  devel- 
oped in  the  visions,  and  the  metaphysical  doctrines  involved  in  all  his  Relations. 
The  questions  introduced  by  Dr.  Pond  do  not,  in  the  higher  sense  of  the  term.. 


-  .c 
'6 


4  REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 

properly  speaking,  involve  any  philosophical  principles  at  all.  Let  us  pause  a 
moment  upon  this  "  philosophy  of  the  visions,"  the  very  existence  of  which 
does  not  appear  to  have  occurred  to  Dr.  Pond  :  and  we  do  so  the  more  readily, 
as  we  conceive  that  this  idea  of  the  visions  is  the  grand  impediment  in  the  way 
of  most  minds  in  their  first  view  of  Swedenborg's  system  :  that  this  chasm  once 
leaped,  or  bridged  over,  the  admission  of  other  parts  of  his  revelations  becomes 
comparatively  easy. 

Beginning  then  at  the  starting  point  of  most  philosophies,  we  will  assume  that 
the  created  universe  is  divided  between  mind  and  matter.    The  mind  manifests 
itself  under  certain  states  of  consciousness,  denominated  sensations,  ideas,  emo- 
^  "^^s  f  tions,  volitions.    The  succession  of  these  sensations,  ideas,  emotions,  volitions, 
'    constitutes  its  life.r  By  afaculty  which  we  call  memory  the  mind  takes  a  record 
,       of  these  successions,  and  lays  them  up  in  its  archives.    In  addition  to  this 
subjective  process  of  the  memory  another  takes  place,  which,  for  the  present, 
we  will  call  a  projective  process :  by  this  we  mean  that  process  by  which  various 
wants  and  ideas  of  the  mind  manifest  themselves  in  objective  creations,  and  is 
the  process  which  has  produced  all  that  man  has  added  on  the  surface  of  our 
globe.    By  these  processes  the  mind  elaborates  to  itself  a  mass  of  experiences, 
which  really  go  to  form  an  interior  spiritual  organization.    This  organization  re- 
sides in  every  portion  of  the  body,  and  in  it  resides  its  life.    When  it  retires  from 
''    any  part  of  the  body,  that  part  dies  ;  when  it  retires  from  the  whole  body,  the 
body  dies.    It  is  the  principle  within  the  body  which  sees,  hears,  smells,  fetls. 
If  you  demur,  and  say  that  the  senses  are  not  a  part  of  the  mind,  but  only  so 
many  instruments  which  the  mind  uses  to  make  itself  acquainted  with  external 
objects;  we  accept  your  definition  so  far  as  the  material  organs  are  concerned : 
'<        but  you  are  as  far  as  ever  from  a  resolution  of  the  matter;  for  the  organs  of 
themselves  have  no  power  to  perceive,  or  to  convey  their  perceptions.  And 
.when  the  soul  retires  irom  the  body,  the  material  organization  remains,  but  the 
J   ( 'Ipower  is  gone.    The  spirit  took  that  away  with  it  when  it  departed.    The  eye 
0  ^  ^remains,  but  the  seeing  is  gone;  the  ear  remains,  but  the  hearing  is  gone  ;  the 
*  J -whole  net-work  of  the  nervous  system  remains  spread  out  over  the  surface  of 
3  ■    J  the  body,  but  the  sense  of  touch  is  gone.    It  is  evident  that  no  fibre  of  the  body 
"  •  possesses  any  power  of  itself,  but  is  only  capable  of  action  when  animated  by 
the  spirit.    If  you  say  that  the  nerves  convey  sensations  from  every  part  of  the 
.  body  to  the  mind  and  that  therefore  it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  the  mind 
resides  all  over  the  body;  you  merely  describe  a  certain  mode  of  action,  with- 
out giving  an  explanation  ;  for  it  is  evident  that  but  for  the  presence  of  the  spirit, 
'  the  nerves  would  be  incapable  of  conveying  the  sensations.    The  spirit  then, 
when  dismissed  from  the  body,  goes  into  the  other  life  without  any  particle  of 
matter  about  it ;  carrying  with  it  all  that  constituted  its  life  here,  its  senses,  its 
faculties,  perceptive  and  reflective,  its  sensations,  ideas,  emotions,  volitions  and 
memory:  a  psychical  organism  in  the  form  of  a  human  body.    It  is  now  in  a 
world,  into  the  constituent  elements  of  which  not  a  particle  of  matter  enters.  If 


i-^  you  hesitate,  we  hand  you  over  to  the  Mahometan,  or  leave  you  in  the  "  heaven 
of  the  Koran,"  and  pass  on.  In  this  new  world  it  meets  another  spirit,  and  it 
1.  'sees  it.  If  you  do  not  like  the  word  see,  as  applied  to  a  spiritual  perception,  we 
'  '"will  say  perceives  it.  If  you  question  that,  you  shut  up  the  immortal  soul  in  an 
V^*^  eternity  of  solitary  imprisonment,  and  deprive  it  of  most  of  the  essentials  of  ex- 


/ 


y7 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


5 


istence.  If  one  spirit  perceives  another,  it  perceives  a  mental  organism,  con- 
sisting of  sensations,  ideas,  emotions,  volitions,  laid  up  in  the  memory.  It  sees 
emotions  heaving  the  breast,  it  sees  a  mind  in  the  process  of  thinking,  ideas  in 
the  process  of  being  formed,  and  of  being  evolved,  and  of  being  projected,  or 
thrown  out,  into  a  scenery  around  the  subject  thinking.  As  the  mind  continues 
to  operate,  and  thought  succeeds  thought,  it  perceives  this  scenery  gradually 
changing,  and  issuing  forth  in  a  continued  phantasmagoria.  If  thoughts  issuing 
from  the  mind  become  objective  existences  to  the  perceptions  of  spirits — if  they 
become  objects  of  sight — they  must  of  necessity  present  themselves  to  the  eye 
in  some  definite  form;  for  it  is  a  plain  impossibility  for  a  finite  object  to  exist 
cognizable  by  the  senses  without  assuming  some  form.    If  these  thoughts  pre-^  ,^ 

>  '  .^sni  themselves  in  outward  forms,  some  pre-existing  cause  must  determine  that 

'v"(fo'''i^-    Each  particular  tlKmght  must  have  a  given  form.    But  what  determines_  ,j  ^ 
the  form  of  a  dioujjht Clearly,  the  desire  from  which  the  thought  springs^:  for 
all  thought  is  excited  by,  and  is  derived  from,  some  pre-existing  desire,  or  inclw'^'^, 
nation,  or  impulse.    Then  the  character  of  the  desire  must  impress  its  formj  , 

V-.  jupon  the  thought.    If  the  desires  are  holy,  the  thoughts  will  be  holy.    If  the  de- 
sires  are  evil,  the  thoughts  will  be  evil,  and  the  scenery  will  correspond.    If  the 
desire  prompts  the  thought,  and  the  thought  assumes  an  objective  form,  the 
scenery  with  which  spirits  are  surrounded  will  be  governed  by  their  moral  state  ; 
if  governed  by  that  state,  it  will  correspond  to  it.    If  you  admit  this,  you  admit 
a  doctrine  of  Correspondences.    If  you  object  to  it,  in  order  to  give  your  objection 
any  logical  validity,  you  must  point  out  the  error  in  the  deduction,  and  furnish  a 
theory  which  will  better  harmonize  with  the  known  laws  of  mind  and  matter. 
But  it  may  be  asked,  do  you  intend  to  say  that  the  objects  of  the  other  wjrld 
,  are  mere  appearances,  that  all  its  scenes  of  happiness  or  misery  are  merely 
ideal Is  there  nothing  more  real  there  than  the  forms  projected  from  the  hu- 
man mind We  say,  they  are  indeed  appearances,  and  ideal  ones ;  but  not 
the  less  real  on  that  account.    For,  to  our  conceptions,  ideas  are  more  real  than 
mere  physical  existences,  inasmuch  as  causes  are  to  be  considered  more  real^  .■■^'^ 
\than  the  effects  which  flow  from  them.    If  you  will  wait  and  weigh  the  subject 
a  moment,  yon  will  perceive  that  there  is  no  object  builded  by  the  hand  of  man, 
but  is  the  type  of  some  pre-existing  idea  in  the  mind  of  man.    The  erection  of  a 
great  cathedral  cannot  go  on  until  the  entire  structure,  down  to  the  minutest 
ornament  has  been  patiently  elaborated  in  the  mind  of  the  architect.    The  pen- 
cil of  the  artist  is  powerless  until  his  ideal  image  has  presented  the  form  it  is  to 
describe.    So  we  infer  that  the  material  universe  existed,  and  was  thought  out  in  ^7"\ 
the  Divine  mind  before  it  existed  as  a  series  of  physical  facts.    The  mind  of \,_ 
man  we  are  told  is  an  image  of  the  Divine.    The  mind  of  man  is  finite :  after 
Qias  thought,  it  is  obliged  to  avail  itself  of  instrumentalities  to  ultimate,  or  to  " 

.  Yactualize]its  tjioughts.9  The  mind  of  the  Divine  Being  is  infinite  :  His  thoughts, 
are  potentialities  :  with  Him  the  process  of  thinking  is  the  process  of  creating.  ' 
His  thoughts  enrobe  themselves  spontaneously  with  a  material  vestment,  and^ 
become  a  "  fixed  fact"  perceptible  to  the  senses.  The  object  thus  created,  as  we  K 
have  seen,  derives  its  form  from  the  form  of  the  thought  of  which  it  is  the  cover-  ^ 
ing.    Thus  the  physical  universe  corresponds  to  the  spiritual  universe  :  which  is 

i      the  Doctrine  of  Correspondences.    The  foundations  of  the  spiritual  world,  then, 

*  f    C<}      ex.     CC^'y'lx      ^     ,  • 

"  ^  .  -/■' 


6 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


will  rest  just  where  do  those  of  the  material  world — in  the  mind  of  the  Creator: 
and  from  thence  are  derived  its  forms,  and  its  objective  realities. 

We  conclude,  then,  that  in  the  other  life,  afTections  and  thonghts  do,  as  Swe- 
denborg  has  represented,  become  objective  existences ;  and  that  they  are  the 
only  objective  existences  which  a  sound  philosophy  can  predicate  of  a  spiritual 
•      state.    The  scenic  furniture,  then,  of  the  spirit-world  varies  v/ith  the  changes 
^      in  the  moral  states  of  its  inhabitants  :  and  the  objection  that  the  Memorable  Re- 
Tations  often  represent  it  as  somewhat  fantastical  and  strange,  ceases  to  be  an 
objection.    It  would  rather  be  more  strange,  if  a  scenery  proceeding  from  such 
changeable  causes,  should  not,  at  times,  assume  what  to  us  would  appear  strik- 
J      iiigly  curious  and  peculiar  phases.    Dr.  Pond,  as  do  other  reviewers,  arrays 
o      copious  extracts  from  the  Relations,  in  order  to  present  them  in  an  improbable 
j      and  ridiculous  light.    He  might,  however,  have  saved  himself  the  trouble  ;  for 
^      all  the  visions  must  stand  or  fall  together ;  and  if  he  will  show  one  to  be  iinsound, 
we  will  cheerfully  relinquish  the  rest.    If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  philosophy  on 
^      which  they  repose  can  be  shown  to  be  sound,  it  will  be  impossible  to  overturn, 
*|      or  even  to  shake  them,  by  any  array  of  extracts,  however  long,  or  however  re- 
J      pugnant  to  his  common  sense  they  may  appear.    This  mode  of  appealing  to 
ancient  prejudices  in  opposition  to  a  new  philosophical  dogma,  is  a  very  corn- 
s'     mon  occurrence  in  the  history  of  science.    Thus,  one  of  the  great  arguments 
U   . .  against  the  Copernican  system,  was,  that  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  anti- 
S      podes — of  people  with  their  feet  in  the  direction  of  our  heads.    And  another 
■*    ■  •  was,  that  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  such  vast  empty  spaces  as  the  truth  of 
.  -  that  system  necessarily  supposed  to  exist  in  the  celestial  regions.   But  a  more 
;  striking  illustration  of  the  futility  of  mere  preconceived  opinions  when  urged  in 
opposition  to  a  new  truth,  is  afforded  in  the  development  of  the  great  Newtonian 
theory  of  gravitation, 
v'^     "  Rather  more  than  a  century  and  a  hal^ago,  it  was  a  philosophical  maxim, 
^sl'^  disputed  by  no  one,  and  which  no  one  deemed  to  require  any  proof,  that '  a 
^      thing  cannot  act  where  it  is  not.'    With  this  weapon  the  Cartesians  waged  a 
formidable  war  against  the  theory  of  gravitatiorit'which,  according  to  them,  in- 
volving so  obvious  an  absurdity,  must  be  rejected  in  limine ;  the  sun  could  not 
-  V  possibly  act  upon  the  earth,  not  being  there.    It  was  not  surprising  that  the  ad- 
i  herents  of  the  old  systems  of  astronomy  should  urge  this  objection  against  the 
new ;  but  the  false  assumption  imposed  equally  upon  Newton  himself,  who,  in 
order  to  turn  the  edge  of  the  objection,  imagined  a  subtle'ether  which  filled  up 
the  space  between  the  sun  and  the  earth,  and  by  its  immediate  agency  was  the 
proximate  cause  of  the  phenomena  of  gravitation.    '  It  is  inconceivable,'  said 
Newton,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Dr.  Bentley,  '  that  inanimate  brute  matter  should, 
without  the  mediation  of  something  else,  which  is  not  material,  operate  on  and 
"  affect  other  matter  without  mutual  contact.    That  gravity  should  be  innate,  inherent, 
'^si  and  essential  to  matter,  so  that  one  body  may  act  on  another,  at  a  distance, 
/  through  a  vacuum,  without  the  mediation  of  anything  else,  by  and  through 
which  their  action  and  force  may  be  conveyed  from  one  to  another,  is  to  me  so 
great  an  absurdity,  that  I  believe  no  man  in  philosophical  matters  has  a  compe- 
tent faculty  of  thinking,  can  ever  fall  into  it.'    This  passage  should  be  hung  up 
in  the  cabinet  of  every  man  of  science  who  is  ever  tempted  to  pronounce  a 
fact  impossible  because  it  appears  to  him  inconceivable.    In  our  own  day  one 


3.    ^J221^ii^^^  ^  ^  • 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


7 


would  be  more  inclined,  though  with  equal  iujustice,  to  reverse  the  coacluding 
observation,  and  consider  the  seeing  any  absurdity  at  all  in  a  thing  so  simple  and 
natural,  to  be  what  really  marks  the  absence  of  '  a  competent  faculty  of  think- 
ing.'    No  one  now  feels  any  difficulty  in  conceiving  gravity  to  be,  as  much  as  f' , . 
any  other  property  is, '  innate,  inherent,  and  essential  to  matter,' nor  finds  the  y- 
comprehension  of  it  facilitated  in  the  smallest  degree  by  the  supposition  of  an-  > 
other;  nor  thinks  it  at  all  incredible  that  the  celestial  bodies  can  and  do  act  ?. 
where  they,  in  actual  bodily  presence,  are  not.    To  us  it  is  not  more  wonderful 
that  bodies  should  act  upon  one  another  '  without  mutual  contact,'  than  that  • 
they  should  do  so  when  in  contact;  we  are  familiar  with  both  these  facts,  and  "• 
we  find  them  equally  inexplicable,  but  equally  easy  to  believe.    To  Newtonthe 
one,  because  his  imagination  was  familiar  with  it,  appeared  natural  and  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  while  the  other,  for  a  contrary  reason,  seemed  too  absurd  to  be 
credited.    If  a  Newton  could  err  thus  grossly  in  the  use  of  such  an  argument, 
who  else  can  trust  himself  with  it."* 

We  hope  that  those  who  may  have  rejected  the  statements  of  Swedenborg  in 
relation  to  the  other  life  because  his  visions  appear  inconceivable,  or  at  war  with 
our  first  crude  and  iminstructed  conceptions,  will  pause,  and  reconsider  the 
grounds.  In  proportion  as  the  subject  is  carefully  examined,  will  grow  the  con- 
viction of  their  intrinsic  truth ;  a  conviction  which  will  gradually  creep  into  the 
penetralia^f  the  consciousness  as  it  is  patiently  pondered.  We  are  warranted 
in  the  conclusion,  that  there  is  no  philosophical  reason  why  his  relations  may 
not  pass  into  the  intuitions  of  Christendom  as  self-evident  truths,  when  sufficient 
time  shall  have  elapsed  for  them  to  become  familiar  to  the  public  mind,  by  con- 
tinued presentation.  And  we  have  no  doubt  this  will  be  their  future  history,  and 
that  the  difficulty  will  be  to  conceive  how  contrary  views  could  so  long  have 
commended  themselves  to  the  reception  of  rational  minds.  We  have  seen  that 
the  alleged  incongruity  of  the  "  visions "  with  the  current  ideas  of  a  future 
state,  ceases  to  be  in  itself  an  objection.  But  it  does  not  merely  cease  to  be  an 
objection ;  it  immediately  arranges  itself  on  the  affirmative  side  of  the  question, 
and  by  the  concilienci'ol  our  deductions  and  his  assertions,  becomes  a  strongly 
corroborative  argument,  which  will  recommend  itself,  as  an  important  logical 
step  in  the  verification  of  his  claims,  with  more  or  less  force  to  different  minds, 
as  they  have  been  more  or  less  accustomed  to  the  application  of  the  science  of 
inquiry  to  historical  and  philosophical  subjects. 

We  now  pass  to  the  consideration  of  the  alleged  facts  of  physical  science  ; 
and  the  first  one  we  meet,  has  already  been  replied  to  in  the  N.  J.  Magazine. 
This  is,  that  "  Swedenborg  asserts  that  the  planet  Saturn  is  farthest  distant  from 
the  sun."  The  phrase  farthest  distant  is  a  translation  of  the  word  longissime  and 
should  read  very  far  distant.  The  next  two  we  will  present  at  length  in  Dr. 
Pond's  own  words.  "  Swedenborg  taught,  that '  atmospheres,  waters,  and -earths 
are  the  common  or  general  principles  (elements)  by  which,  and  from  which,  all  and 
everything  exists,  with  an  infinite  variety.  "Atmospheres,"  he  said,  "  are  the 
active  powers,  waters  are  the  intermediate  powers,  and  earths  are  the  passive 
powers,  from  which  all  things  exist."  From  this  account  it  appears  that  Swe- 
denborg knew  nothing  of  the  modern  discoveries  in  chemistry,  and  that  his 


*  System  of  Logic  by  Mr.  Stuart  Mill,  p.  461. 


8 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


whole  theory  of  creation,  or  rather  of  formation,  which  constitutes  an  important 
part  of  his  pretended  revelation,  is  based  in  ignorance  and  error  The  common 
principles  or  elements,  of  which  all  things  are  composed,  are  earth,  atmosphere, 
and  water.  But  neither  earth,  atmosphere,  nor  water  are,  in  any  sense,  ele- 
ments. They  are  each  of  them  most  exquisite  compounds,  made  up  of  element- 
ary substances —  a  fact  of  which  Swedenborg  was  profoundly  ignorant  If,  as 
Swedenborg  assures  us,-  and  that  too  on  the  authority  of  the  angels — if  the 
earth  is  a  product  of  the  sun's  atmosphere,  then  the  sun's  atmosphere  must  reach 
to  the- earth;  or,  which  is  the  same,  the  earth's  atmosphere  must  reach  to  the 
^3C[sun.  But  it  has  been  ascertained  that  the  earth's  atmosphere  actually  does  reach 
<|S  y  3*^°*^  more  than  from  forty  to  fifty  miles  above  the  earth's  surface." 
Q  ^  "V  ♦  Before  we  proceed  to  place  this  specimej^  of  astute  science  in  the  category  in 
vTy-  which  it  belongs,  let  us  observe  in  relation  to  Dr.  Pond's  remark,  that  "  earth, 
■i  atmosphere  and  water  are  not,  in  any  sense,  elements that  earth,  atmosphere, 
and  water  are  elements :  and  that  too  in  the  most  ordinary,  and  generally  re- 
ceived use  of  that  term;  and  that  Swedenborg  used  it  in  this  sense,  aruJ  not  in 
the  more  restricted  and  technical  sense  of  the  last  result  of  chemical  analysis,  is  ob- 
vious from  the  fact  that  he  is  not  discoursing  of  a  subject  involving  chemical 
questions,  but  is  simply  describing  the  various  mechanical  states  through  which 
matter  is  supposed  to  have  jjassed  in  the  formation  of  the  universe.  But  Dr. 
Pond  in  thus  attempting  to  ridicule  Swedenborg's  theory  of  creation,  has  in  fact 
placed  himself  in  direct  antagonism  to  all  die  philosophy  of  the  day ;  for  the 
theory  in  question  is  no  other  than  the  great  nebular  theory  of  La  Place.  To  place 
the  subject  more  prominently  before  the  reader  we  extract  a  statement  of  that 
theory  from  a  recent  philosophical  work.* 

*'  The  celebrated  speculation  of  La  Place,  now  very  generally  received  as  pro- 
bable by  astronomers,  concerning  the  origin  of  the  earth  and  planets,  participates 
essentially  in  the  strictly  inductive  character  of  modern  geological  theory.  The 
speculation  is,  that  the  atmosphere  of  the  sun  originally  extended  to  the  present 
limits  of  the  solar  system;  from  which,  by  the  process  of  cooling,  it  has  con- 
tracted to  its  present  dimensions ;  and  since,  by  the  general  principle  of  niechan- 
'  ics,  the  rotation  of  the  sun  and  of  its  accompanying  atmosphere  must  increase 
in  rapidity  as  its  volume  diminishes,  the  increased  centrifugal  force  generated 
by  the  more  rapid  rotation,  overbalancing  the  action  of  gravitation,  would  cause 
the  sun  to  abandon  successive  rings  of  vaporous  matter,  which  are  supposed  to 
have  condensed  by  cooling,  and  to  have  become  our  planets.  There  is  in  this 
theory  no  unknown  substance  introduced  upon  supposition,  nor  any  unknown 
property  or  law  ascribed  to  a  known  substance.  The  known  laws  of  matter 
authorize  us  to  suppose  that  a  body  which  is  constantly  giving  out  so  large  a 
quantity  of  heat  as  the  sun  is,  must  be  progressively  cooling,  and  that  by  the 
process  of  cooling  it  must  contract;  if,  therefore,  we  endeavor,  from  the  present 
state  of  that  luminary,  to  infer  its  state  in  a  time  long  past,  we  must  necessarily 
suppose  that  its  atmosphere  extended  much  further  than  at  present,  and  we 
are  entitled  to  suppose  that  it  extended  as  far  as  we  can  trace  those  effects  which 
it  would  naturally  leave  behind  it  on  retiring;  and  such  the  planets  are.  These 
suppositions  being  made,  it  follows  from  known  laws  that  successive  zones  of 


•  Mill's  System  of  Logic. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND.  " 

the  solar  atmosphere  would  be  abandoned  ;  that  these  would  continne  to  revolve 
round  the  sun  with  the  same  velocity  as  when  they  formed  a  part  of  his  sub- 
stance; and  that  they  would  cool  down,  long  befort;  the  sun  himself,  to  any 
given  temperatur/s,  and  consequently  to  that  at  which  the  greater  part  of  the 
vaporous  matter  of  which  they  consisted  would  become  liquid  or  solid.  The 
known  law  of  gravitation  would  then  cause  them  to  agglomerate  in  masses, 
which  would  assume  the  shape  our  planets  actually  exhibit;  would  acquire, 
each  round  its  own  axis,  a  rotatory  movement ;  and  would  in  ihat  state  revolve, 
as  the  planets  actually  do,  about  the  sua,  in  the  same  direction  wich  the  sun's 
rotation,  but  with  less  velocity,  and  each  of  them  in  the  same  periodic  time 
which  the  sim's  rotation  occupied  when  his  atmosphere  extended  to  that  point; 
and  this  also  M.  Comte  has,  by  the  necessary  calculations,  ascertained  to  be  true 
within  certain  small  limits  of  error.  There  is,  then,  in  La  Place's  theory,  no- 
thing hypothetical  :  it  is  an  example  of  legitimate  reasoning  from  a  present  effect 
to  its  past  cause,  according  to  the  known  laws  of  that  cause ;  it  assumes  nothing 
more  than  that  objects  which  really  exist,  obey  the  laws  which  are  known  to 
be  obeyed  by  all  terrestrial  objects  resembling  them." 

We  wonder  if  the  keen  optics  of  Dr.  Pond  would  detect  any  evidence  of"  in- 
sanity" ox  of  " profound  ignorance"  \n  the  above  extract:  and  yet  this  contains 
the  very  doctrines  which  he  says  "are  based  in  ignorance  and  error."  The 
truth  is,  that  he  has  given  the  works  of  Swedenborg  so  hasty  and  desultoiy  a 
glance,  that  he  has  failed  as  a  general  fact  to  arrive  at  a  just  idea  of  the  subject- 
matter  treated  of,  and  misapprehending,  has  of  course  misrepresented,  his  views. 
So  in  relation  to  the  Dr.'s  next  reference.  "  The  following  is  Swedenborg's} 
description  of  the  atmosphere  :  '  it  consists,'  he  says,  of '  discrete  substances  (par-j 
tides),  of  a  very  minute  form,  originating  from  the  stin.  The  fire  of  the  sun 
each  of  them  receives,  treasures  it  up,  tempers  it,  and  conveys  as  heat  to  the 
earth  ;  and  in  like  manner  also  the  light.'  What  will  our  modern  lecturers  about^ 
oxygen,  nitrogen  and  carbon  say  to  this  ?"  Now  Swedenborg  is  not  here  at- 
tempting to  give  a  chemical  analysis  of  the  atmosphere,  but  only  describing 
the  mode  of  the  sun's  action  upon  it — a  subject  which  comes  under  the  head 
of  electricity  rather  than  chemistry :  a  subject  on  which  Swedenborg  will  be 
found  to  have  been  not  quite  so  "  profoundly  ignorant"  as  Dr.  Pond  imagines ;  as 
will  appear  from  the  fact  that  the  "  Diamagnetic  theory"  which  Prof.  Faraday 
has  recently  communicated  to  the  world  as  the  result  of  his  latest  experiments, 
was  clearly  and  distinctly  laid  down  by  Swedenborg  one  hundred  years  ago ; 
with  the  single  exception  of  not  using  Prof  Faraday's  new  term  "  diamagnetic." 

Dr.  Pond  next  complains  of  Swedenborg  for  saying  that  the  redness  of  blood 
corresponds  to  love,  and  says,  "modern  Physiologists  have  discovered  that  the 
redness  of  the  blood  is  owing  to  the  presence  of  iron  in  the  system."  The  Dr. 
here  manifestly  confounds  a  "  correspondence"  which  we  claim  to  be  an  efficient 
cause  with  a.  physical  cause,  which  we  claim  to  be  merely  an  antecedent  phe- 
nomena, powerless  in  itself,  but  unconditionally  present.  Physiologists  observe 
that  the  blood  is  red,  and  in  searching  for  the  cause  they  ascertain  the  fact 
that  the  portion  of  the  vital  fluid  in  which  the  colorresides  contains  the  peroxide 
of  iron.  They  extract  the  iron,  and  the  color  disappears.  They  extract  any 
other  constituent,  and  the  color  remains.  We  then  say  they  have  discovered 
the  cause.   But  what  do  we  mean?   Merely  that  they  have  discovered  the 


10  REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 

phenomenon  which  is  uniformly  antecedent.  But  what  power  has  the  iron  per  se 
to  determine  the  character  of  the  plienomenon  which  shall  proximately  succeed 
and  which  we  term  the  effect  ?  We  answer  none-  So  far  as  the  iron  is  concerned, 
blackness  in  the  blood  might  have  been  the  concomitant  of  its  presence  as  easily 
and  as  naturally  as  redness.  We  ask  then  what  shall  determine  the  kind  of  effect 
that  shall  follow  any  given  phenomenon  ?  Surely  a  power  which  is  higher 
than  the  effect — namely,  a  spiritual  power.  Thus  the  spiritual  causes  do  not 
take  their  position  in  the  line  of  phenomenal  development;  but  reside  in  a 
like  succession  within  the  phenomena,  giving  to  the  phenomena  "the  power  of 
becoming  (fieri),"  and  constituting  their  life  because  causing  their  motion.  Dr. 
Pond's  philosophy  has  probably  yet  to  be  instructed  in  the  fact,  that  there  are 
no  real  efficient  causes  in  the  i^hysical  sphere,  but  that  every  effect  of  this  nature 
imperatively  remands  us  for  its  rationale  to  a  higher,  that  is,  to  a  spiritual  region, 
and  when  we  have  once  entered  this  region  it  is  impossible  to  evade  the  fact 
that  affections  and  thoughts  primarily  constitute  all  the  real  causation  in  the 
universe. 

We  will  here  adduce  the  passage  from  Swedenborg  on  which  Dr.  Pond's  ob- 
jection is  founded,  and  will  challenge  a  refutation  of  its  truth,  whatever  may  be 
the  succors  of  science  and  philosophy  that  he  shall  summon  to  his  aid.  "  The 
blood  is  red  because  of  the  correspondence  of  the  heart  and  the  blood  with  love 
and  its  affections.  In  the  spiritual  world  there  are  colors  of  all  kinds.  Red  and 
white  are  the  fundamentals ;  the  rest  derive  their  varieties  from  these  and  their 
opposites,  which  latter  are  dusky-fiery  color  and  black :  red  there  corresponds  to 
love,  and  white  to  wisdom.  Red  corresponds  to  love,  because  it  derives  its 
origin  from  the  fire  of  the  sun  of  that  world,  and  white  to  wisdom,  because  it 
derives  its  origin  from  the  light  of  the  same  sun;  and  as  love  corresponds  to  the 
heart,  hence  the  blood  cannot  be  otherwise  than  red:  and  indicate  its  origin." — 
{Divine  Love  and  IVisdom,  No.  380.)  This  passage  affords  a  striking  illustration  of 
the  principle  of  correspondence,  as  being  in  fact  the  relation  of  cause — efficient 
cause — and  effect. 

We  quote  as  next  in  order,  "  That  the  blood  undergoes  some  change  in  the 
lungs,  Swedenborg  understood;  but  as  to  the  nature  and  cause  of  the  change, 
he  entertains  the  wildest  theories,  all  which  he  mixes  up  as  usual,  with  his 
spiritual  correspondences.  1.  The  blood  purifies  itself  in  the  lungs  from  things 
undigested.  2.  From  the  air  which  is  attracted,  the  blood  also  nourishelh  itself 
with  Things  conducible.  Those  who  admit  his  claims  must  of  course  believe 
hi/n,  whatever  may  become  of  their  physiology,  or  their  common  sense."  The 
italicising  is  Dr.  Pond's ;  but  for  what  reason  it  is  done,  we  are  unable  to  con- 
ceive, unless  it  be  that  he  expects  soon  to  exercise  his  "  physiology"  and  his 
"  common  sense"  on  a  theory  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  in  opposition  to  the 
received  one  of  Harvey.  We  confess  ourselves  unable  to  get  away  from  the 
opinion  that  the  Doctor  has  here  overthrown  Harvey's  celebrated  theory,  so  far 
as  italicisings  and  wonder-marks  can  do  it.  If  Dr.  Pond  was  somewhat  better 
acquainted  with  the  reputation  Swedenborg  has  among  really  scientific  men, 
we  lean  rather  to  the  impression  that  he  would  have  refrained  from  taking  him 
up  in  this  department.  We  subjoin  a  few  extracts  in  relation  to  his  "  Animal 
Kingdom." 

"  In  conclusion,  we  record  our  opinion,  positively,  and  not  relatively  ;  wholly. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


1 

n 


and  without  reservation,  tliat  if  the  mode  of  reasoning  and  explanation  adopted 
by  Swedenborg  be  once  understood,  the  anatomist  and  physiologist  will  ac- 
quire more  information,  and  obtain  a  more  comprehensive  view  of  the  hnman 
body  and  its  relation  to  a  higher  sphere,  than  from  any  single  book  ever  pub- 
lished ;  nay,  we  may  add  than  from  all  the  books  which  have  been  written 
(especially  in  modern  times)  on  physiology,  or  as  it  has  been  lately  named, 
transcendental  anatomy.  Swedenborg  reasons  not  on  any  hypothesis,  not  on 
any  theory,  not  on  any  favorite  doctrine  of  a  fashionable  school,  but  on  the  solid 
principles  of  geometry,  based  on  the  immutable  rock  of  truth." — [Land.  Monthly 
Review.) 

"This  is  the  most  remarkable  theory  of  the  human  body  that  has  ever  fallen 
in  our  hands :  and  by  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  too  !  a  man  whom  we  had  always 
been  taught  to  regard  as  either  a  fool,  a  madman,  or  an  impostor,  or  perhaps  an 
indefinable  compound  of  all  three.  Wonders,  it  seems  will  never  cease.  We 
opened  this  book  with  surprise,  a  surprise  grounded  upon  the  name  and  fame 
of  the  author,  and  upon  the  daring  affirmative  stand  which  he  takes  in  limine- 
We  close  it  with  a  deep-laid  wonder,  and  with  an  anxious  wish  that  it  may  not 
appeal  in  vain  to  a  profession  which  may  gain  so  much,  both  morally,  intellect- 
ually, and  scientifically,  from  the  priceless  truths  contained  in  its  pages." — {Lond. 
Forceps.) 

The  next  charge,  however,  is  of  graver  character.    We  condense  it.    "  The 
Scriptures  everywhere  represent  God  as  the  Creator  of  all  things.    By  him  were 
created  all  things  that  are  in  Heaven  and  earth.    But  this  obvious  teacliing  of 
science.  Scripture  and  common  sense  is  directly  contradicted  by  Swedenborg, 
who  asserts  that  hell  was  created  by  the  human  race,  and  that  numerous  noxious 
animals  and  plants  are  products  of  hell."    Now,  first,  in  relation  to  the  origin  of  ' 
hell,  we  should  like  to  ask  a  few  questions.    Is  it  orthodox  to  believe  that  hellf 
is^a  vast  prison-house,  with  huge  gates,  built  somewhere  towards  the  interior  of 
the  earth,  and  so  contrived  as  to  answer  at  the  same  time  the  purpose  of  a  fur- 
nace, in  which  its  wretched  inmates  are  to  be  tormented  with  perpetual  flames  ? ' 
Was  this  prison-house  so  built  at  the  beginning  of  the  world,  before  man  had 
fallen,  or  any  sin  had  been  committed  >    Does  not  Dr.  Pond  himself  hold  to  the 
more  rational  view  that  hell  exists  as  a  consequence  of  man's  sin;  and  would^ 
Jiejiot,  in  the  last  analysis,  admit  that  the  human  race  have  made  to  them-^ 
selves,  by  their  sinful  acts,  that  hell  which  would  not  have  existed  if  there  had.v 
been  no  sin.'    Who  then  originated  sin,  God,  or  man?    We  leave  Dr.  Pond's' 
readers  to  decide  as  to  them  seemeth  best.    The  statement  in  relation  to  noxious 
animals  and  plants  being  created  by  hell,  would  more  truly  describe  Sweden- 
borg's  doctrine  if  it  read  "  that  the  Lord  caused  these  noxious  animals  and  jjlants 
to  exist  in  consequence  of  man's  perversion  and  corruption  of  his  nature,  and 
his  falling  into  concupiscences  and  sins."    This  is  in  truth  the  teaching  of  Swe- 
denborg on  this  head  ;  and  he  nowhere  intimates  that  the  potentiality  of  origina- 
tion resides  in  the  hellish  societies.    "  But,"  we  are  told,  "  geology  reveals  the 
fact  that  these  animals  existed  on  our  earth  at  a  period  long  anterior  to  the  crea- 
tion of  man,  and  consequently  at  a  period  when  no  sin  could  have  been  com- 
mitted and  no  hell  formed."    We  reply,  first,  that  we  are  not  so  clear  in  relation 
to  the  teachings  of  geology  on  this  point.    It  must  be  remembered  that  it  is  a 
doctrine  of  Swedenborg  that  man  has  existed  on  this  globe  for  many  thousands 


12 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


of  years  longer  than  is  usually  supposed,  and  this  doctrine  is  receiving  constant 
corroboration  by  a  variety  of  discoveries.  Secondly,  it  is  certain  that  none  of 
the  animals  inentioned  by  Swedenhorg  have  ever  been  found  in  a  position 
which  would  necessarily  refer  the  period  of  their  animated  existence  to  a  state 
geologically  anterior  to  the  present  order  of  things.  Still,  however,  this  is  not 
the  true  answer  which  ihe  system  gives  to  such  a  charge,  as  might  be  readily 
inferred  from  a  moment's  reflection  on  some  of  its  features.  Swedenhorg  teaches 
that  other  and  innumerable  worlds  were  created  and  inhabited,  myriads  of  ages 
before  the  crust  of  our  planet  became  fitted  to  receive  its  population,  and  there- 
fore that  heaven  ami  hell  had  existed  before  ;  neither  of  them  depending  for  their 
earlier  inhabitants  upon  emigrations  from  our  earth. 

The  next  fact  adduced  is,  that  Swedenhorg  taught  that  men  before  the  fall, 
had  no  external  respiration,  and  no  sonorous  articulate  language;  but  commu- 
nicated their  ideas  to  one  another  by  numberless  changes  of  the  countenance 
(frnd  by  the  lively  expression  of  the  eye.  Dr.  Pond  says,  "  But  I  may  and  do 
<assert,  that  the  statement  is  so  at  war  with  reason  and  common  sensed' as  to  be 
wholly  incredible.  Men  at  that  period  had  organs  of  respiration,  else  they  were 
not  men  ;  and  who  believes  they  were  never  exercised  .'"  As  these  remarks  do 
not  adduce  any  facts  in  relation  to  the  subject,  but  simply  arraign  the  doctrine 
on  the  ground  of  its  inherent  incredibility,  we  might  have  passed  it  in  silence. 
To  the  interrogatory  conveyed  in  the  last  clause,  we  would,  however,  remark 
that  we  believe  it;  and  that  we  are  accompanied  in  our  belief  by  large  numbers 
of  intelligent  persons  in  the  various  civilized  communities.  We  know  that  pre- 
vious to  birth  every  individual  exists  for  a  certain  period  in  a  condition  in  which 
his  lungs  are  in  a  quiescent  state,  and  the  necessary  circulation  is  supplied  in  a 
manner  provided  by  nature,  without  external  respiration.  If  the  life  of  the  in- 
dividual  be  typical  of  the  life  of  the  race,  may  it  not  be  possible  that  during  that 
portion  of  the  life  of  the  race  corresponding  to  the  embryo  state,  that  the  Creator 
saw  fit  to  provide  for  the  requisite  circulation  in  some  other  than  the  mode 
which  was  afterwards  superinduced  \V^e  see  that  he  does  so  in  the  hfe  of  the 
individual,  and  is  it  not  possible  he  may  have  done  so  in  the  life  of  the  race.' 
We  are  well  aware  that  at  first  sight  it  does  not  appear  probable,  and  may  pre- 
sent a  real  difliculiy  to  some  minds.  But  take  another  view  for  a  moment. 
Suppose  the  fact  had  been  positively  affirmed  in  the  letter  of  the  text  of  Genesis  ; 
would  you  have  then  found  any  difficaltij  in  believing  it  ?  Is  it  per  se  a  whit  more 
improbable,  or  difficult  of  belief  than  the  fact  stated  in  Genesis  that  men  in  that 
day  lived  to  be  a  thousand  years  old  .'  We  really  believe  that  if  the  question 
could  be  submitted  to  unprejudiced  physiologists,  as  to  which  of  the  two  doc- 
trines were  the  most  credible,  on  the  ground  of  coutradicting  any  facts  of  sci- 
ence, the  decision  would  be  unhesitatingly  in  favor  of  Swedenborg's  doctrine. 
Thus,  it  is  evident  that  you  do  not  lessen,  but  rather  increase  your  difficulties  by 
rejecting  Swedenborg's  interpretation  and  clinging  to  the  old. 

Again,  Dr.  Pond  says,"  Equally  contradictory  to  all  reason  and  science  is  Swe- 
denborg's account  of  the  origin  of  diseases.  He  ascribes  them  frequently,  per- 
haps universally  (a  perfectly  gratuitous />cr/(n;ys),  to  the  infestation  of  evil  spirits." 
Then  follows  an  enumeration  of  instances  in  which  Swedenhorg  affirms  that 
evil  spirits  by  their  peculiar  influx  induced  pains,  cramps,  colds,  &c.,  in  himself 
and  others.    And  he  closes — "  Swedenhorg  makes  the  above  statements,  it  will 


ft* 


in.- 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


13 


be  borne  in  mind,  not  as  with  him  matters  of  opinion,  but  as  uncloubled/wc/.s,  of 
whicli  he  had  come  to  the  knowledge  through  his  intercourse  with  the  spiritual 
world.  And,  if  they  be  facts,  I  have  only  to  say  that  the  practice  of  gxorc/sm  4'hould 
be  at  once  revived,  and  should  everywhere  supersede  that  of  dentistry  and 
medicine." 

In  reply  to  this  we  shall  lay  before  the  reader  what  Swedenborg  actually  says 
on  the  subject,  and  leave  it  to  him  to  judge  how  far  Dr.  Pond  has  succeeded  in 
invalidating  his  statements. 

"  Inasmuch  as  tlie  correspondence  of  diseases  is  to  be  treated  of,  it  should  be 
known,  that  all  diseases  also  with  man  have  correspondence  with  the  spiritUEil 
world  ;  for  whatsoever  in  universal  nature  1ms  not  correspondence  with  the 
spiritual  world,  this  will  not  exist,  having  no  cause  from  which  it  can  exist, 
consequently  from  which  it  can  subsist:  the  things  which  are  in  nature,  are 
nothing  but  effects,  their  causes  are  in  the  spiritual  world,  and  the  causes  of 
those  causes,  whicli  are  ends,  are  in  the  interior  heaven.  Neither  can  an 
effect  subsist,  unless  the  cause  be  continually  in  it,  for  on  the  cessation  of 
the  cause  the  effect  ceases ;  an  effect  considered  in  itself  is  nothing  else  than 
the  cause,  but  the  cause  so  extrinsically  clothed,  as  may  serve  to  enable  it 
to  act  as  a  cause  in  an  inferior  sphere  :  and  as  the  case  is  with  an  effect  in  re- 
spect to  the  cause,  so  also  is  it  with  the  cause  in  respect  to  the  end  ;  luiless  the 
cause  also  exist  from  its  cause,  which  is  the  end,  it  is  not  a  cause,  for  a  caitse 
without  an  end  is  a  cause  in  no  order,  and  where  there  is  no  order,  there  is  not 
anything  effected.  Hence  then  it  is  evident,  that  an  effect  considered  in  itself  is 
a  cause,  and  that  a  cause  considered  in  itself  is  an  end,  and  that  the  end  of  good 
is  in  heaven,  and  proceeds  from  the  Lord ;  conse(|uently  that  an  effect  is  not  an 
effect  unless  the  cause  be  in  it,  and  be  continually  it ;  and  that  a  cause  is  not- a 
cause,  unless  the  end  be  in  it,  and  be  continually  in  it;  and  that  an  end  is  not 
an  end  of  good,  unless  the  Divine  which  proceeds  from  the  Lord  be  in  it.  Hence 
also  it  is  evident,  that  all  and  single  things  in  the  world,  as  they  have  existed 
from  the  Divine,  also  exist  from  the  Divine. 

"  These  things  are  said  that  it  may  be  known,  that  diseases  also  have  corres- 
pondence with  the  spiritual  world  ;  they  have  not  correspondence  with  heaven, 
which  is  the  grand  man,  but  with  those  who  are  in  the  opposite,  thus  with 
those  who  are  in  the  hells.  By  the  spiritual  world  in  the  universal  sense  is) 
meant  both  heaven  and  hell,  for  man,  when  he  dies,  passes  out  of  the  natural) 
world  into  the  spiritual  world.  That  diseases  have  correspondence  with  those: 
who  are  in  the  hells,  is  because  diseases  correspond  to  the  lusts  and  passions  of 
the  mind  {animus);  these  also  are  the  origins  of  diseases:  for  the  origins  of  dis- 
eases in  common  are  intemperances,  luxuries  of  various  kinds,  pleasures  merely 
corporeal,  also  envyings,  hatreds,  revenges,  lasciviousness,  and  the  like,  which 
destroy  the  interiors  of  man,  and  when  these  are  destroyed,  the  exteriors  suffer, 
and  draw  man  into  disease,  and  thus  into  death  ;  that  man  is  subject  to  death 
by  reason  of  evils,  or  on  account  of  sin,  is  known  in  the  church  ;  thus  also  he  is 
subject  to  diseases,  for  these  are  of  death.  From  these  things  it  may  be  mani- 
fest, that  diseases  also  have  correspondence  with  the  spiritual  world,  but  with 
unclean  things  there,  for  diseases  in  themselves  are  unclean,  inasmuch  as  they,', 
originate  in  things  unclean,  as  Avas  said  above. 

"  All  the  infernals  induce  diseases,  but  with  a  difference,  by  reason  that  all  the 
hells  are  in  the  lusts  and  concupiscences  of  evil,  consequently  against  those 


14 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


things  wliich  are  of  heaven,  wherefore  they  act  upon  (or  mto)  man,  from  what 
is  opiDosite  :  heaven,  wliich  is  the  grand  man,  contains  all  things  in  connection 
and  safety ;  hell,'  because  it  is  in  the  opposite,  destroys  and  rends  all  things  asun- 
der; consequently  if  the  infernals  are  applied,  they  induce  diseases,  and  at 
length  death.  But  it  is  not  permitted  them  to  flow  in  even  into  the  solid  parts 
jthernselves  of  the  body,  or  into  the  parts  which  constitute  the  viscera,  the 
organs,  and  members  of  man,  but  only  into  the  lusts  and  falsities  Xonly  whea 
'man  falls  into  disease,  they  then  flow  in  into  snch  unclean  things  as  pertain  to 
the  disease  ;  for,  as  wgis  said,  nothing  ever  exists  with  man,  unless  there  be  a 
cause  also  in  the  spiritual  world;  the  natural  with  man,  if  it  were  separated 
from  the  spiritual,  would  be  separated  from  all  cause  of  existence,  thus  also  from 
everything  of  life.  Nevertheless  this  is  no  hindrance  to  man's  being  healed 
naturally,  for  the  divine  providence  concurs  with  such  means.  That  the  case  is 
so,  has  been  given  to  know  by  much  experience,  and  this  so  frequently  and  of 
so  long  cont'iiuance,  tis  not  to  leave  a  doubt  remaining :  for  evil  spirits  from 
such  places  have  been  often  and  for  a  long  time  applied  to  me,  and  according 
to  their  presence  tiiey  induced  pains,  and  also  diseases;  they  were  shown  me 
where  they  were,  and  what  was  their  quality,  and  it  was  also  told  me  whence 
they  were."*— C.  5711-5713.) 

From  the  above  extract  it  will  be  perceived  that  along  with  the  statement  of 
tlie  doctrine,  Swedenborg  has  given  the  fundamental  grounds  on  which  it  rests. 
And  we  ask,  are  they  sufficient,  or  are  they  not .'  It  is  not  enough  for  Dr.  Pond 
to  say  that  the  doctrine  is  contrary  to  reason;  his  character  of  philosophic  re- 
viewer of  a  system  of  philosophy  imposes  on  him  the  duty  of  showing  it  to  be 
so,  or  he  fails  to  meet  the  issue  raised  by  hinjself.  The  primary  assumption 
that  a  certain  philosophical  dogma  is  contradictory  to  reason,  without  an  expo- 
sure of  the  fallacy  in  the  process  of  ratiocination  by  which  it  is  sustained,  or  an 
impeachment  of  the  original  bases  from  which  it  is  deduced,  does  not  constitute 


*  "  We  have  space  only  to  add  that  these  views  are  signally  confirmed  by  a  recur- 
rence to  our  Lord's  sayings  and  doings,  while  on  earth.  It  is  said  that  '  Jesus  went 
about  all  Galilee,  teaching  in  their  synagogues,  and  preaching  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom, 
and  healing  all  manner  of  sickness  and  all  manner  of  disease  among  the  people.'  The  sick 
were  brought  unto  him,  and  were  healed.  He  cast  out  devils  that  infested  the  bodies 
of  men  ;  and  healed  many  of  their  infirmities.  To  one  he  said,  '  Thy  sins  are  forgiven 
thee  ;  arise,  and  walk  !'  and  meeting  him  afterwards,  he  said,  '  Sin  no  more,  lest  a 
wor.*e  plague  come  upon  thee  !'  Did  he  not  attribute  the  plagtie,  the  evil  which  he  had 
cured,  to  sin,  to  evil  in  the  spirit  t  else  why  say,  '  Sin  no  more,  lest  a  worse  plague 
come  upon  thee  !'  To  his  twelve  apostles  he  gave  '  power  over  unclean  spirits,  to  cast 
them  out,  and  to  heal  all  manner  of  sickness  and  all  manner  of  disease.'  How  was  this 
healing  effected  ^  How  did  the  Lord  cast  out  devils,  and  heal  diseases  *?  Swedenborg 
V  tells  us  that  diseases  correspond  to  evils  of  life,  as  effects  correspond  to  causes.  To 
^^al,  is  to  cure,  and  purify  from  evils  of  life.  This  was  the  Lord's  great  mission;  an3 
^.  ^n  performing  it,  fn  removing  and  casting  out  evils  from  the  hunian  mind — he  cast  out 
^    devils,  diseases;  the  effects  of  these  evils,  from  the  body. 

"  Thus  were  his  miracles  wrought!  His  divine  truth  and  goodness,  tempered  to  the 
states  of  humanity,  flowed  into  the  proper  recipients  of  the  blessing  ;  and  by  removing 
the  cause,  the  evil,  removed  the  whole  train  of  effects.  Thus  the  unclean  spirit  was  re- 
C  buked,  and  the  disease  immediately  cured!  The  evil  was  removed  by  its  opposite, 
p-'  ■  good.  There  were  those  who  accused  the  Lord  of  performing  his  cures  upon  a  very 
different  principle — one  which  has  obtained  some  favor  at  the  preaent  day.  '  Similia 
timilibus  citrantitr,' exclaimed  the  bathed  Pharisees :  ' By  the  prince  of  devils  casteth 
he  out  devils.'  But  the  Great  Physician  demonstrated  to  them,  in  a  clear  and  masterly 
argument,  the  impossibility  of  doing  the  work  which  he  did,  by  such  means." — Dick- 
son's Fallacies  of  the  Faculty. 


REPLY  TO'DR.  POND. 


15 


an  answer,  but  resolves  itself  simply  into  an  impotent  negation,  which  no  sys- 
;      tern  is  called  upon  to  respect.    It  will  be  observed  that  the  fact  of  the  influence 
^     of  evil  spirits  in  the  cause  of  diseases  is  inferred  from  two  great  fundamental 
principles  ;  that  all  efficient  causes  reside  in  the  spiritual  world  ;  and  that  sin  is 
'      the  origin  of  evil.    Is  Dr.  Pond  prepared  to  call  these  in  question     If  you  deny 
^    that  the  constant  succession  of  phenomena  which  we  witness  in  the  physical 
world  derives  its  daily  motion  from  spiritual  causes  which  reside  immediately 
within  the  veil,  you  necessarily  assume  that  the  material  universe  has  life  inhe- 
i     rent  in  itself,  and  is  capable  of  keeping  its  own  wheels  in  motion,  and  in  that 
i     case  there  is  no  logical  landing-place  for  you  on  this  side  Spinoza  ism)-  If,  on  the 
(     other  hand,  you  are  willing  to  admit  the  existence  and  consequent  potency  of 
spiritual  causes,  we  confess  we  do  not  clearly  see  any  room  for  you  very  far  on 
the  other  side  of  Swedcnborgianism.  v^'J^ 
4        But  Dr.  Pond  asserts  also  that  the  doctrine  is  contrary  to  scknce:  but  in  whafj  -   *"  • 
way  it  contravenes  any  of  the  known  facts  of  science  we  are  not  told,  and  for^'[ 
ourselves  we  are  unable  to  conceive.    We  have  supposed  that  it  was  the  busi-'j 
ness  of  science  to  occupy  itself  with  manifestations,  to  investigate  effects,  and  thatj 
it  belonged  to  the  province  of  philosophy  to  inquire  into  causes.    If  this  distinc-' 
tion  be  a  valid  one,  science,  strictly  so  called,  is  an  incompetent  witness  in  the 
present  case  and  has  no  negative  testimony  to  offer  :  in  truth,  nothing  is  plainer, 
y    from  the  simple  enunciation  of  the  doctrine  in  the  language  of  Swedenborg, 
than  that  it  transcends  the  province  of  the  physical  sciences,  as  those  have  hith- 
erto been  conducted. 

»  This  affords  us  another  specimen  of  the  insufficiency  of  the  mode  pursued  by 
our  reviewers  to  meet  the  merit  of  the  questions  at  issue.  A  doctrine  is  stated, 
in  its  most  objectionable  or  least  rational  form,  and  is  then  compared  with  the 

V  prevailing  notions  on  the  same  subject,  and  where  any  discrepancy  is  discover- 
able the  new  doctrine  is  rejected  with  scorn,  without  any  attempt  to  call  in 
question  the  fundamental  principles  from  which  it  springs,  or  to  refute  the  pro- 
cess of  reasoning  by  which  it  has  been  derived.  And  to  so  great  an  extent  is 
this  the  case,  that  we  are  warranted  in  the  inference  that  the  fact  of  the  existence 

'V  of  such  fundamental  principles  in  the  system  has  for  the  most  part  remained 
unperceived. 

t  ^    Here  is  a  great  system  of  philosophical  theology,  professing  to  have  accom- 
•  plished  more  than  any  or  all  the  systems  that  have  gone  before  it  have  dared  to 
undertake ;  taking  its  point  of  departure  in  the  psychology  of  the  Divine  Wind,  and 
from  two  words.  Love  and  Wisdom,  deducing  the  entire  system  of  the  Universe : 
beginning  with  the  Divine  Being  as  the  causal  centre  of  all  thmgs,  and  raying  out 
^  iin  every  direction  the  great  fundamental  laws  which  govern  the  development 
^  «  and  the  sustentation  of  all  created  existences  ;  knowing  no  distinction  between 
theology  and  philosophy;  reversing  the  former  methods  of  speculative  inquiry 
>    and  teacning,  that  we  are  to  pursue  the  philosophy  of  effects  in  the  science  of 
^  ^causes  and  not  the  philosophy  of  cause  in  the  science  of  effect.    Looking  at  the 
^material  framework  of  nature  from  the  point  of  view  of  cause,  instead  of  its 
phenomenal  aspect,  it  follows  out  the  application  of  first  principles  to  the  inmost 
■  recesses  of  her  laboratory,  and  exposes  to  view  the  most  subtle  processes  of  her 
v^hidden  arcana.    Extending  its  hand  to  the  advancing  sciences  it  leads  them  for- 
ward  by  paths  which  they  knew  not,  to  their  culmination^and  final  absorption 


16 


KEPLY  TO  "DR.  POND. 


into  philosophy;  thus,  when  geology,  chemistry, electro-magnetism,  pathology, 
physiology  and  biology  shall  have  proceeded  so  far  as  to  be  able  to  verify  or  to 
deny  its  positions,  they  will  have  solved  the  ultimate  riddles  of  their  respective 
departments.  Many  of  the  old  general  propositions  of  Christendom  it  challenges 
for  a  new  induction,  and  whenever  it  impinges  on  any  of  the  systems  of  the 
schools  it  throws  a  new  light  over  them,  sifts  them,  and  erects  itself  into  a  stand- 
ard by  which  to  judge  of  their  relative  value;  affording  a  far  better  basis  for 
the  construction  of  a  new  "  History  of  Philosophy  "  than  M.  Cousin's  four  "  psy- 
chological elements  "  It  has  been  remarked  that  Swedenborg  is  "  a  worthy  com- 
peer of  Newton,  of  Bacon,  of  Leibnitz,  of  La  Place,  of  Cuvier."  Our  own  view  is 
that  if  you  deny  his  supernatural  illumination,  and  throw  him  back  on  his  own 
unaided  intellect,  he  revolves  in  a  region  infinitely  above  these ;  and  reminds  us 
of  Kant's  figure  of  the  dove,  in  speaking  of  the  power  of  the  reason;  "  The  light 
dove,  in  her  free  flight  in  the  air,  whose  resistance  she  feels,  may  fancy  that  she 
would  succeed  all  the  better  in  airless  space."  Swedenborg  reaches  this  "  air- 
less space,"  "  the  empty  space  of  the  pure  understanding"  of  the  philosopher, 
not  merely  in  a  few  forced  flights,  to  flutter  back  again  exhausted  into  a  muikier 
atmosphere  ;  but  his  mind  takes  up  its  habitual  residence  there  and  deals  with 
the  vast  subjects  of  that  region  as  easily,  and  appears  as  much  at  home  among 
them,  as  does  Linnaeus  surrounded  by  his  "  plants,"  or  Cuvier  among  his 
1^"  bones."  ^Ve  can  clearly  say  that  the  philosophy  of  Swedenborg  has  not  been 
touched.  To  undertake  the  refutation  of  such  a  system  irom  the  logical  stand- 
point assumed  in  the  recent  reviews,  is  like  attempting  to  drive  a  javelin  at  a 
man  on  the  snowy  crest  of  Mount  Blanc  from  the  dejiths  of  the  Chamounian 
valley 

We  come  now  to  another  class  of  alleged  facts.    "Perhaps  no  fact  in  mental 
science,"  says  Dr.  Pond,  "is  better  established,  on  the  ground  of  a  common 
consciousness,  and  the  general  consent  of  the  ablest  metaphysicians,  than  that 
there  are  three  great  departments  Or  susceptibilities  of  mind,  the  intellectual,  the 
sentient,  and  the  voluntary.    We  have  ideas,  emotions,  and  volitions.    We  think,  we 
feel,  we  will.    These  mental  slates  are  clearly  distinguishable,  one  from  the  other, 
and  perhaps  there  is  no  mental  affection  or  operation  of  which  we  are  conscious, 
which  may  not  be  referred  to  one  or  the  other  of  these  three  general  suscepti- 
bilities.   But  Swedenborg  adheres  to  the  old  classification  on  this  subject,  merg- 
ing the  sentient  in  the  voluntary,  and  making  the  whole  mind  to  consist  of  un- 
derstanding and  will.    This  imperfect  classification  is  incorporated  with  his 
correspondences,  and  lies  at  the  basis  of  liis  whole  system  of  religion.    Yet  I 
ha;e  no  hesitation  in  ainrming  that  this  is  a  false  philosophy,"  &c. 
We  conceive  the  above  to  be  rather  too  hasty  a  dismissal  of  an  important  sub- 
•  ject.    it  is  not  a  little  singular  that  the  classification  adduced  by  Dr.  Pond  as  a 
fact,  has  itself  already  been  superseded  by  "  the  consent  of  the  ablest  metaphy- 
sicians," liy  one  which  is  supposed  to  describe  better  the  mental  phenomena. 
'   The  one  now  in  vogue  arranges  the  states  of  consciousness  under  four  heads 
instead  of  three ;  viz.  sensations,  ideas,  emotions,  volitions.    To  Dr.  Pond's  "  we  think, 
■we  feel,  we  will;"  we  may  add,  we  perceive,  and  for  aught  we  see,  we  remember. 


four  view  of  the  question  is  simply  this  ;  that  the  science  of  mind  is  divided  into 
[two  great  departments  of  inquiry ;  the  one,  mental  philosophy,  as  commonly 
^.understood,  deals  with  the  succession  of  the  states  of  consciousness — with  mind 


C^l^  Ca 


/ 


C  S  e/vv 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND.  17 

in  its  phenomenal  manifestation,  and  may  be  termed  the  physiology  of  the  mind.  ^ 

>  The  other,  psychology,  properly  so  called,  a  subject  pertaining  to  the  higher  ."^ 
"  ^  metaphysics,  deals  with  the  composition  of  consciousness — the  ultimate  sub- 

T  stance  in  which  these  phenomena  originate  or  take  place,  and  may  be  called  the 
i,';  anatomi/  of  the  mind.^  If  this  view  be  correct,  it  will  be  found  that  the  understand- 

>  ing  and  willot  Swedenborg  pertain  to  the  anatomy,  and  the  classification  adduced, 

>J  to  the  physiology  of  the  mind;  and  that  therefore  Dr.  Pond  has  failed  to  present  • 
the  precise  point  at  issue.    It  will  be  perceived  that  we  can  go  on  and  multiply  '7 
•  names  for  the  various  states  of  consciousness  as  far  as  we  wish,  and  still  adhere  to 
.'  the  psychology  of  Swedenborg.    We  have  not  the  least  doubt  it  will  stand  every 
test  to  which  the  most  rigid  metaphysical  analysis  can  bring  it.  ^ 
We  have  next  to  notice  some  historical  facts.    "  Swedenborg  asserts, '  that  a 
Trinity  of  persons  was  unknown  in  the  apostolical  church,  and  that  it  was  broached 

-  at  the  Nicene  Council  in  the  fourth  century.'  This  is  not  the  place  to  go  into  a 
J  Scriptural  defence  of  the  Trinity.    Every  reader  of  the  Bible  knows,  or  may 

know,  that  the  Father  is  there  represented  as  God,  and  the  Son  as  God,  and  the 

-  Holy  Spirit  as  God.  Still  there  is  but  one  God.  Here  then  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
.  Trinity  in  the  apostolic  church.    And  as  to  the  ages  succeeding  the  apostles,  it 

is  just  as  easy  to  prove  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  before  the  Nicene  Council  as 
.  after  it." 

To  avoid  falling  into  the  confusion  which  pervades  every  portion  of  Dr.  Pond's 

-  book,  from  the  indefinite  use  of  terms,  and  the  double  sense  often  applied  to 
^  them,  let  us  remark  an  obvious  distinction.    There  are  two  doctrines  of  the 

Trinity  :  the  one,  that  the  three  Essentials  of  the  Godhead  reside  in  one  Person ; 
^  which  is  the  doctrine  of  Swedenborg ;  and,  as  we  claim,  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
^  may  be  called  the  Trinity  in  Unity.    The  other,  that  three  distinct  Persons  enter 
v"^  into  the  Godhead,  which  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  held 
■•■^by  Dr.  Pond — distinguished  as  the  Tri-personal  Trinity^  and  may  be  called  the 
^   Unity  in  Trinity.    Now  when  Dr.  Pond  asserts  tliat  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is 
t  <|taught  in  the  Bible,  we,  of  course  agree  with  liim.   When  he  says  it  is  easy  to) 
\prove  its  existence  before  the  Nicene  Council,  we  agree  with  him.    When  he  says) 
>-y;hat  the  Father  is  God,  the  Son  is  God  and  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God,  and  that  th^ 
J  v.three  are  one  God,  we  agree  with  him.    But  when  he  goes  on  to  assert,  what  is 
<i  ijiot  found  in  Scripture,  that  these  three  are  distinct  persons,  and  not,  as  Vi^e  believe, 
^*^\|hree  names  appliedU)  the  same  person,  then  we  part  company  with  him  and  deny  it^-^^ 
If  he  means  that  this  Tri-personal  Trinity  is  the  one  which  was  taught  before  the 
Nicene  Council,  we  are  at  direct  issue  with  him  on  the  question  of  fact.  It  is  rather 
strange  too  that  he  should  state  positively  that  it  is  as  easy  to  prove  the  Tri-per- 
sonal Trinity  before  the  Nicene  Council  as  after  it ;  when  it  is  well  known  that  it 
cannot  be  done.    Among  tlie  many  authorities  which  might  be  cited  on  this  sub- 
ject, a  single  one  of  high  standing  will  be  sufficient.    We  extract  from  Mr.  John 
Henry  Newman's  Essay  on  the  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine.    Speaking  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  before  the  Nicene  Council,  he  says :  "  Now  let  us  look 
at  the  leading  facts  of  the  case ;  first,  the  creeds  of  that  early  day  make  no  mention 
of  the  Catholic  doctrine  at  all.    They  make  mention  indeed  of  a  Three ;  but  that 
there  is  any  mystery  in  the  doctrine,  that  the  three  are  one,  that  they  are  co- 
equal, co-eternal,  all  increate,  all  omnipotent,  all  incomprehensible,  is  not  stated, 
and  never  could  be  gathered  from  them."   We  could  give  lengthy  quotations  to  the 


la^  REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 

same  effect,  more  fully  discussing  the  point  and  adducing  the  authorities.  Tliose 
who  wish  to-  pursue  it  further,  will  find  the  subject  ably  drawn  out  in  Mr.  New- 
man's introduction.  We  have  referred  to  him,  because,  whatever  we  may  think 
of  the  theology  of  the  Oxford  school,  they  possess  the  very  highest  authority  in 
matters  of  ecclesiastical  history,  aud  moreover  cannot  be  suspected  very  strong- 
ly of  any  Sweilenborgian  bias.  What  Mr.  Newman  says  of  the  creeds,  applies 
equally  to  the  writings  of  the  fathers,  and  all  other  anti-Nicene  documents ;  and 
his  assertion  is  that  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  Tri-personal  Trinity  cannot  be 
made  out  from  any  of  them. 

Dr.  Pond  proceeds.    "  Swedenborg  asserts  that '  the  faith  imputative  of  the 
merit  of  Christ,'  or  in  other  words,  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  'was  not 
known  in  the  Apostolic  Church,  but  first  arose  from  the  decrees  of  the  Nicene 
Synod."    As  to  these  doctrines  orginating  with  "  the  Nicene  Synod,  I  need  onJy 
"  say,  that  there  is  not  a  word  in  the  Nicene  creed  or  canons,  on  the  subject." 

Now  Swedenborg  never  said  there  was.    A  truer  transcript  of  his  statement 
j  "  on  this  head  would  read  like  this ;  that  the  faith  imputative  of  the  merit  of  Christ 
grew  up  in  the  church  subsequently  to  the  Nicene  Council,  as  a  legitimate  his- 
)      torical  and  logical  development  from  the  doctrine  concerning  three  Divine  Per- 
^   sons  from  eternity  ;  which  latter  doctrine  was  first  promulgated  at  the  Nicene 
j    Council.    This,  it  will  be  perceived  places  the  matter  in  a  far  clearer  light; 
,  J  ^and  we  may  affirm  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  frame  a  statement,  which  would 
be  in  more  strict  accordance  with  the  facts  of  history,  than  that  which  Sweden- 
'  ^   borg  puts  forth.    Dr.  Pond  closes  his  historical  objections  by  stating  that  the 
"Apostles'  creed,"  and  the  "  Athanasian  creed"  were  written  at  periods  much 
later  than  those  ascribed  to  them  by  Swedenborg,  and  remarks  that  he  was  "  un- 
fortunate" in  these  assertions.    Without  assuming  to  know  more  on  the  subject 
of  ecclesiastical  history  than  is  within  the  easy  reach  of  any  general  inquirer, 
we  should  say  that  it  is  Dr.  Pond  and  not  Sicedenborg  who  is  unfortunate  in  his 
assertions.    The  opinion  that  these  creeds  are  of  more  recent  origin  than  is 
taught  by  the  Catholic  church,  is  of  modern  growth,  coming  from  that  ultra 
protestant  spirit  which  supposes  that  the  simple  affirmation  of  Rome  on  a  given 
head,  is  proof  positive  that  the  negative  is  true.    In  relation  to  the  Apostles' 
creed,  the  testimony  that  it  was  actually  what  it  pretends  to  be,  the  oldest  creed, 
and  existed  in  the  apostolic  church,  is  beyond  controversy.    We  do  not  over- 
state it,  when  we  say  that  there  is  no  testimony  to  the  contrary.    In  relation  to 
the  Athanasian  creed  the  evidence  is  not  quite  so  clear;  but  it  is  certainly  not  of 
a  character  to  warrant  Dr.  I'ond's  assumption.    The  most  that  can  be  arrived  at 
on  it  is  an  opinion and  a  vast  preponderance  of  opinion  refers  it  to  tlie  same 
period  as  does  Swedenborg.    It  is  not  for  us  to  go  into  elaborate  discussions  of 
points  of  ecclesiastical  history,  but  we  hope  those  who  feel  interest  enough  in 
the  facts  to  examine  them,  will  not  refer  to  two  or  three  common-place  maiuials 
and  there  rest,  but  will  carry  their  inquiries  to  the  proper  sources  from  which 
such  information  is  to  be  derived. 

We  have  said  that  the  above  were  the  last  historical  facts  referred  to  :  there  is 
indeed  an  attempt  of  several  pages,  to  show  that  Swedenborgiaiis  hold  that  the 
internal  sense  of  the  Word  is  no  new  thing,  but  has  always  been  held  in  the 
church,  and  that  they  at  the  same  time  believe  that  it  was  unknown  until  Swe- 
denborg revealed  it ;  and  Dr.  Pond  founds  a  grave  charge  of  inconsistency  on 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


19 


this  statement.  Verily,  we  opine  there  must  be  something,  in  the  atmosphere  of 
Bangor  extremely  deleterious  to  the  development  of  clear  mental  vision.  The 
person  who  cannot  perceive  the  manifest  distinction  between  a  spiritual  sense 
asserted  in  a  general  way,  as  it  has  been  in  the  dmrch,  and  the  particular  spirit- 
ual sense  unfolded  by  Swedenborg,  would  not  be  likely  to  gain  much  light  from 
anything  we  could  say  on  the  subject ;  and  we  pass  it. 

By  a  singular  paralogism^ in  reasoning,  Dr.  Pond  has  "  demonstrated  the  false- 
hood of  Swedenborg's  pretensions"  by  the  application  of  two  "  tests"  whose 
denouement  is  confessedly  future;  viz.  in  relation  to  a  peculiar  people  in  the 
interior  of  Africa;  and  the  existence  of  an  ancient  Scripture  in  Tartary.  Ap- 
pealing for  the  final  decision  of  these  points  to  the  further  developments  of  pos- 
itive discovery,  we  proceed,  lastly,  to  the  consideration  of  the  facts  cited  in  re- 
gard to  the  hieroglyphics  of  Egypt.  "  Swedenborg,"  continues  Dr.  Pond,  "  says 
that  the  Egyptians  retained  the  knowledge  of  correspondences  longer  than  any 
other  people;  and  that  the  whole  system  of  hieroglyphical  writing  is  founded 
upon  it.  *  *  *  The  system  of  Swedenborg  is  then  fully  committed  to  this  view 
of  the  hieroglyphics.  *  *  *  But  unfortunately  for  the  system,  the  hieroglyphics 
have  since  been  deciphered.  *  *  *  By  far  the  greater  portion  of  the  Egyptian, 
hieroglyphics  are  simple  alphabetical  characters.  There  is  no  more  enigma  or 
mystery  about  them  than  about  our  own  A,  B,  C  ;  of  the  remainder,  a  part  are 
mere  pictures ;  the  picture  of  a  man  standing  for  a  man,  and  that  of  a  lion  for  a 
lion,  &c.  *  *  *  So  much  for  Swedenborg's  alleged  knowledge  of  hieroglyphics, 
and  for  the  support  they  were  expected  to  give  to  his  doctrine  of  corresponden- 
ces. The  utter  failure  of  the  proposed  theory  is  enough  to  overthrow  the  whole 
doctrnie  of  correspondences,  and  to  destroy  all  credit  in  him  as  an  inspired  and 
infallible  teacher." 

Let  us  begin,  as  usual,  wii:h  an  explanation.  The  science  of  correspondences 
is  said  to  have  undergone  a  gradual  decadence,  and  finally  to  have  been  lost. 
This  knowledge  is  said  to  have  been  retained  longest  amongst  the  Egyptians ; 
and  from  the  remains  of  the  correspondences,  the  beginning  of  the  hieroglyphics  is 
said  to  have  arisen.  Hieroglyphics  were  in  use  when  Menes  ascended  the 
throne,  and  continued  in  use  for  a  period  of  more  than  Jive  thousand  years*  Dur- 
ing that  time  they  underwent  a  gradual  change,  as  must  inevitably  be  the  case 
with  every  system  of  language  and  writing  employed  by  a  people  through  such 
a  tract  of  ages  ;  old  symbols  came  to  have  new  significations,  and  in  process  of 
time  a  new  characteristic  was  superinduced  upon  the  old  mode ;  viz.,  a  phonetic'^ 
power  was  added  to  the  symbols.  This  is  of  comparatively  modern  date. 
With  these  considerations  before  us  we  shall  be  better  prepared  to  form  a  correct 
estimate  of  the  amount  of  coincidence  which  we  have  a  right  to  expect  shall 
exist  between  the  old  science  of  correspondences  and  modern  hieroglyphics,  or 
those  written  from  1500  to  300  years  B.  C.  It  is  observable  that  the  origin  of 
the  hieroglyphics,  and  not  the  precise  characteristics  which  they  presented  in 
the  later  stages  of  their  use,  is  the  real  point  at  issue.  We  do  not  think  that  a 
person  entirely  unacquainted  with  the  character  of  the  hieroglyphics  would  be 
likely  to  derive  a  very  correct  idea  of  them  from  Dr.  Pond's  description.  "  No 
more  mystery  than  our  own  A,  B,  C."   "  The  picture  of  a  man  standing  for  a 


*  This  chronology  at  first  view  may  be  thought  erroneous;  it  is  that,  however,  which 
i  3  now  assumed  by  the  hierologists  Bockh,  Henry,  and  Barruohi. 


20 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


man,  and  that  of  a  lion  for  a  lion,"  &c.  Now  a  lion  signified  strength;  which  to 
New  Church  eyes  looks  very  like  a  correspondence.*  But,  Dr.  Pond  will  say,  that 
was  merely  its  metaphorical  meaning,  and  was  so  applied  because,  being  strong, 
a  lion  was  supposed  to  be  a  very  good  representative  of  the  idea  of  strength. 
Precisely ;  and  that  is  all  we  are  contending  for :  viz.  that  the  written  character 
symbolized  some  idea  with  which  it  was  supposed  to  have  some  natural  connection. 
Thus,  a  beetle,  did  not  mean  simply  a  beetle,  but  stood  for  the  world:  nine  bows, 
represented  the  land  of  Lybia ;  an  asp,  royalty ;  an  eagle,  courage;  a  cake  civiliza- 
tion; a  mace,  military  dominion;  a  ram's  head,  zn/eZ/ect  (frontal  power);  a  duck 
symbolized  a  doctor  of  medicine,  from  which  we  infer  that  a  goose  might  have 
stood  for  a  doctor  of  divinity,  only  that  the  symbol  was  otherwise  appropriated, 
and  meant  offspring  ;  and  a  priest  was  represented  by  a  jackal. 

We  are  told  by  hierologists  that  one  of  the  leading  modes  of  forming  these 
;ancient  signs  was  to  put  the  effect  for  the  supposed  cause :  which  is  precisely  the 
principle  of  the  correspondences  of  Swedenborg.    Swedenborg  says  that  the 
.^  reason  why  a  given  physical  object  is  said  to  correspond  to  a  certain  idea,  is  be- 
■■  'cause  it  has  flowed  from  that  idea  as  its  efficient  cause.    "These  ideographic" 
signs,"  says  Mr.  Gliddon,  "  abound  in  Egyptian  legends."    The  Egyptian  judges 
N.     wore  a  breast-plate  on  which  were  cut  symbolic  figures  on  a  blue  ground.  The 
blue  was  typical  of  the  sapphire,  a  precious  stone  of  a  blue  color,  and  both  sig- 

  nified  truth :  consequently  that  the  judges  would  preside  in  the  love  of  truth. 

Turning  to  the  "  Dictionary  of  Correspondences"  it  will  be  seen  that  the  love  of 
Vtruth  is  the  signification  given  by  Swetlenborg  to  these  same  symbols.    So  again 
^oEgypt  was  called  the  land  of  "  truth  and  justice,"  or  "  purity  and  justice,"  typj- 
^^i/Jied  by  a  sycamore,  and,  convertibly,  was  called  the  land  of  the  sycamore.  In 
ij  Swedenborg's  correspondences  "  sycamore"  signifies  "  external  truth."  We 
^^might  go  on  and  fill  a  volume  on  the  coincidences  and  corroborations  which 
the  system  of  Swedenborg  derives  from  the  disclosures  of  the  monumental 
Egypt;  but  our  object  is  only  to  indicate  the  fact  to  inquiring  New  Churchmen. 
As  we  recede  from  modern,  and  approach  ancient  times,  the  more  the  simplicity 
of  the  hieroglyphics  disappears,  and  the  more  their  mystical  or  symbolical  origin 
becomes  apparent. 

Dr.  Pond  further  remarks-.  "There  is  still  another  view  to  betaken  of  this  sub- 
ject. Swedenborg  says  that  the  most  ancient  people,  who  had  the  science  of 
correspondences,  and  were  the  authors  of  the  hieroglyphics  possessed  also  the 
most  ancient  Word  or  Scripture.  •  •  •  Moses  was  well  acquainted  with  this 
ancient  Word  in  Egypt,  and  borrowed  the  first  eleven  chapters  of  Genesis  from 
it.  Now  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  probable,  on  Swedenborg's  hypothesis,  that 
this  most  ancient  word  still  exists,  in  hieroglyphical  characters,  in  Egypt.  Will 
some  of  our  learned  Swedenborgians  go  and  search  for  it If  Prof  Bush,  or 
some  one  else,  could  give  us  '  the  Book  of  Jasher,'  &c.  written  out  from  the 
hieroglyphics,  we  should  esteem  it  a  great  favor,  and  the  discovery  would  add 
not  a  little  to  the  authority  of  Swedenborg."  New  Churchmen,  we  think,  will 
be  found  to  have  a  juster  view  of  the  kind  of  evidence  likely  "  to  add  to  the 
authority  of  Swedenborg"  than  that  expressed  above.  They  have,  in  their  sim- 
plicity supposed  that  it  would  be  entirely  a  matter  of  supererogation  for  them  to 


*  In  Swedenborg's  correspondences  "  Lion"  signifies  the  power  of  truth. 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND.  21 

run  away  and  spend  their  time  among  the  pyramids  and  obelisks  of  Egypt,  when 
the  work  was  being  done  to  their  hands  by  learned  hierologists  of  the  Qhampor 
lion^chool,  better  fitted  for  the  task  than  could  be  any  missionaries  of  the  New 
Church  sent  from  this  country.  They  have  become  sufficiently  aware  of  the 
difficulty  they  would  have  in  getting  the  results  of  their  researches  acknow - 
ledged,  if  they  should  make  them.  Suppose  two  or  three  isolated  Swedenbor- 
gians  should  set  out  for  Africa,  or  Tartary,  or  Egypt,  and  write  home  from  thence 
astonishing  accounts  of  discoveries  they  had  made.  Would  they  be  believed.' 
Could  they  gain  a  ready  and  extended  admission  to  the  public  ear .'  Would  not 
men  occupying  the  very  theological  and  intellectual  ground  of  Dr.  Pond,  be 
among  the  first  to  throw  discredit  and  ridicule  upon  the  reports.'  Do  not  New 
Churchmen  pursue  by  far  the  wiser  course  in  leaving  all  such  developments  to 
be  the  result  of  the  labor  of  others,  that  they  may  constitute  a  stronger,  because 
independent,  body  of  testimony  .'  If  the  system  of  doctrines  taught  to  the  world 
by  Emanuel  Swedenborg  be  indeed  the  Lord's  Truth,  depend  upon  it,  the  re- 
quisite confirmations  will  not  be  wanting,  in  the  silent  but  certain  growth  of 
events.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  be  a  falsity,  the  labors  of  the  present  small 
band  of  receivers  would  avail  little  to  sustain  it,  even  should  they  .cpend  their 
lives  in  extending  their  researches  over  the  deserts  of  Africa,  the  stepped  of 
Tartary,  or  the  monuments  of  the  Nilotic  valley.  How  much  occasion  for 
sneering,  after  the  manner  of  the  above  extract,  the  researches  will  give,  time 
alone  can  reveal.    We  will  however  cite  some  opinions  already  arrived  at. 

"  The  five  books  of  Moses*  carry  with  them  internal  evidence,  not  of  one  sole, 
connected,  and  original  composition,  but  of  a  compilation,  by  an  inspired  writer, 
from  earlier  annals.  '  The  genealogical  tables  and  family  records  of  various 
tribes,  that  are  found  embodied  in  the  Pentateuch,  bear  the  appearance  of  doc- 
uments copied  from  written  archives.  They  display  no  trait  which  might  lead 
us  to  ascribe  their  production  to  the  dictates  of  immediate  revelation,  nor  are 
we  any  where  informed  that  such  in  reality  was  their  origin.  We  are  aware 
that  similar  documents  were  constructed  by  the  inspired  writers  of  the  Gospels, 
from  national  archives  or  family  memorials.'  *  *  *  And  I  extract  from  Dr.  Lamb's 
invaluable  work,  the  succeeding  paragraph,  as  well  as  other  evidences. 

"  '  Every  attentive  reader  of  the  Bible  must  have  observed,  that  the  book  of 
Genesis  is  divided  into  two  perfectly  separate  and  distinct  histories.  The  first 
part  is  an  account  of  the  Creation,  and  the  general  history  of  mankind  up  to  the 
building  of  the  Tower  of  Babel.  The  second  part  is  the  history  of  Abraham,  and 
his  descendants;  from  the  call  of  the  patriarch  in  the  land  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees, 
to  the  death  of  Joseph,  after  the  settlement  of  the  children  of  Israel  in  Goshen,  in 
the  land  of  Egypt.  The  first  part  contains  the  history  of  above  two  thousand  years ; 
and  is  contained  in  the  ten  first  chapters  of  Genesis,  and  nine  verses  of  the  eleventh. 
The  second  part  comprises  a  period  of  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and 
occupies  the  remaining  thirty-nine  chapters.  This  history,  which  commences 
at  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  chapter,  is  preceded  by  a  genealogical  table  tra- 
cing Abraham's  pedigree  up  to  the  patriarch  Shem.    Between  the  event  (Babel) 


"  *  Vide  Prichard's  Egyptian  Mythology — Wiseman's  Lectures — and  "  Hebrew  Char- 
acters derived  from  Hieroglyphics,"  by  John  Lamb,  D.  D.,  Master  of  Corpus  C.  College, 
Cambridge — London,  183.5.  References  will  therein  be  found  to  the  works,  chiefly  of 
German  Hebraical  students,  on  which  the  above  assertions  are  grounded," 


22 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND. 


recorded  in  the  ninth  verse  of  the  eleventh  chapter,  and  the  next  verse  (viz :  the 
call  of  Abraham),  there  intervenes  a  period  of  nearly  four  hundred  years,  daring 
which  we  know  nothing  of  the  history  of  the  human  race  from  the  sacred  Scrip- 
tures' 

"  Thus,  then,  the  Israelites,  before  the  Exodus,  would  have  possessed  two 
sacred  books.  One, '  Genesis,'  properly  so  called ;  and  the  other, '  the  history 
of  Abraham.' 

"  There  is  no  reason  for  supposing  that  other  contemporary  nations  did  not 
possess,  in  those  early  times,  similar  records ;  nor  is  there  any  reason  why  other 
contemporary  nations  should  not  have  chronicled  all  great  events,  and  handed 
down,  perhaps  as  far  as  ourselves,  some  of  the  annals  of  those  events,  that  took 
place  upon  the  earth,  on  which  the  Bible,  during  an  interval  of  '  above  four 
hundred  years,'  is  strictly  silent.    It  will  be  seen  that  the  Egyptians  have. 

"  '  We  know  that,  in  addition  to  these  (books),  the  Hebrews  had  another  book, 
entitled  "  Milchamoth  Jehovah" — the  "  Wars  of  Jehovah"— (vague  traditions  con- 
cerning which  myths  abound  in  Gentile  records,  as  the  wars  of  the  gods  with 
Titan,  the  Indian  primeval  annals,  &c.)  "  from  which  a  quotation  is  given  in 
Numbers  xxi.  14."' 

"  Learned  Hebraists  also  consider  that  the  Jews,  anterior  to  the  age  of  Moses, 
had  a  collection  of  national  ballads,  in  a  book,  entitled  '  Sepher-Hajashur' — see 
Joshua  x.  13 — '  Is  not  this  written  in  the  Book  of  Jasher.''  The  frequent  use  of 
the  words,  '  and  he  sang,'  are  deemed  to  allude  to  the  first  sentence  of  some 
more  ancient  song;  whence  the  title  of  a  book  was  derived.  Judges  v.  1. — Debo- 
rah's song  is  an  instance. 

"  It  is  finally  sustained,  by  great  church  theologians,  that  Moses,  when,  under 
the  inspiration  of  God,  he  indited  the  books  of  the  law,  prefixed  to  them  a  history 
of  Abraham  knd  his  posterity,  as  preserved  by  Israel's  family  ;  and  at  the  same 
time  rendered  their  sacred  records  of  the  Creation  and  history  of  man  up  to  the  dis- 
persion at  Babel  (which  are  presumed  to  have  been  written  in  a  different  character 
— probably  symbolic  writing — from  that  now  known  to  us  as  the  Hebrew  letters), 
into  the  Hebrew  language,  as  current  in  Moses'  day  " 

The  above  citations  are  from  Mr.  Gliddon's  "  Ancient  Egypt."  If  independent 
research  has  already  led  some  candid  inquirers  to  the  opinion  that  the  "  first 
eleven  chapters  of  Genesis,"  are  copied  from  writings  which  were  extant  long 
anterior  to  the  time  of  Moses,  it  is  possible  that  what  Dr.  Pond  utters  in  sneer, 
may  in  the  event  prove  a  prediction.  There  can  surely  be  but  one  philosophi- 
cal course — to  wait  patiently  for  the  results. 

We  do  not  wish  to  be  misunderstood  in  the  use  we  have  made  of  the  hiero- 
glyphics. We  do  not  appeal  to  them  as  affording  positive  evidence  of  the  truth 
of  Swedenborg ;  but  they  are  cited  against  us :  and  we  have  endeavored  to  show 
that  they  cannot  be  made  "to  tell  against  our  views.  And  since  monumental 
Egypt  has  been  called  into  court,  and  has  given  her  testimony  on  the  case  in 
point,  let  us  ask  her  one  or  two  questions  further.  In  addition  to  the  translation 
of  the  symbols  on  her  monuments,  the  study  of  hieroglyphics  has  brought  to 
light  some  new  revelations  in  chronology  and  history.  The  history  of  Manetho 
gives  us  three  hundred  and  seventy-eight  kings,  from  the  reign  of  Menes  down- 
wards, who  reigned  successively  in  Egypt ;  and  every  step  of  discovery  that  has 
been  made  in  the  study  of  the  monuments  has  afforded  confirmation  of  the  chro- 


I 


REPLY  TO  DR.  POND 


cnology  and  arrangement  of  Manetho.    This  chronology  carries  us  back  to  al 
>  period  of  five  thousand  seven  hundred  years  before  Christ,  at  which  period  Menes 
^  ascended  the  throne  as  the  successor  of  the  priestly  hierarchy,  who  had  previ- 
.  ously  ruled  the  nation.    At  this  time  they  were  a  cultivated,  and  a  pyramid-';  • 
building  people ;  with  a  civilisation  even  then  evincing  the  flight  of  previous 
centuries.    So  that  the  Egyptian  annals  carry  us  back  to  a  point  of  eight  thousand 
yycan  from  the  present  time ;  or  two  thousand  years  before  the  Mosaic  account 
«^  j^f  the  creation,  if  Swedenborg's  interpretation  be  rejected,  and  the  common  one 
'.,>i(received.    It  also  shows  that  in  those  early  times  men  lived  to  about  the  same' 
'"^ctfage  as  now,  when,  according  to  the  old  interpretation,  they  should  have  been 
lasting  out  from  600  to  1000  years.    The  line  of  pyramids,  moreover,  like  an 
artificial  mountain  chain,  reaches  right  by  the  alleged  period  of  the  Flood,  with- 
out in  the  least  noticing  such  a  catastrophe.    The  language  of  Egypt  had  its 
20,000  written  papyri  or  volumes  before  the  confusion  at  Babel.    And  these 
results  of  the  Egyptian  records  are  corroborated  by  those  of  the  Chinese,  and  by 
the  observations  of  Geology,  all  of  whose  revelations  look  Swedenborg-ward. 
The  progress  of  science  and  discovery  in  our  day  is  carrying  the  war  into  the 
very  Africa  of  the  old  interpretation,  without  the  personal  aid  of  the  Swedenbor- 
gians.    And  possibly  the  time  may  not  be  far  distant  in  which  the  public  opi- 
nion of  New  England  will  demand  another  book  from  the  leaders  of  her  theolo- 
gical opniions ;  in  which  they  shall  appear  on  the  defensive,  to  assign  their  rea- 
sons for  still  clinging  with  a  firm  adhesion  to  an  antiquated  mode  of  interpreta- 
tion, lying  direcdy  athwart  the  deductions  of  theology,  physiology,  archaeolo- 
gy, hierology,  and  astronomy. 

We  need  not  be  impatient ;  for  the  confirmation  of  New  Church  views,  by  the 
events  which  have  transpired  since  Swedenborg's  time,  are  neither  few  nor  un- 
important. And  though,  to  outward  appearance,  the  morning  of  the  New  Dis- 
pensation still  lingers  in  the  saffron  hue  of  its  early  dawn,  the  eye  of  faith  can 
easily  distinguish  along  the  eastern  horizon  those  dier  tints,  which  betoken 
the  rapid  development  of  the  coming  day. 


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